When Love Isn't Enough
by Darkened Shadows
Summary: Post-manga. Mousse runs into Akane one day while she's playing hooky and they manage to strike a friendship. Jealousy ensues. Akane/Mousse friendship, Akane/Ranma romance. Rated T for any language I may or may not use.
1. In Which There Are Tears

**Disclaimer: Ranma 1/2 and all characters therein belong to Rumiko Takahashi. I merely play with her toys when she's not looking.**

**Author's Note: New story! And it's not a one-shot! Akane/Mousse friendship, Akane/Ranma romance, of course. Directly post-manga. This is my take on the Akane/Mousse friendship, which I really love. Basically, Mousse runs into Akane while she's playing hooky because she can't deal with school the week after the wedding. It will not be nearly as long as On the Open Sea will be (and that one's becoming sort of epic!). I hope you like.**

* * *

With a gasp of breath, Akane woke out of the darkness. She sat up in her bed, taking idle notice that her legs were tangled in her blankets. Slow, calculated movements soon disengaged them from the death grip that had likely contributed to some of the elements of her latest nightmare.

Okay, not so much nightmare as memory.

Her eye twitched slightly as she thought back to that time, her vision physically viewing the Western-style wedding dress that hung in the open door of her closet. She remembered being dead very vividly, more so than she could remember the blurred failure of the wedding that had just been the day before. The dark encroached on everything, twisting and pulling and suffocating. Maybe that was the feeling of her soul being pulled to the Other Side or maybe…

No. It wouldn't do any good to think about it further.

Today had just proved that everything had gone back to normal. Ranma had two fiancées that he openly approved over her. Additionally, because of her increasing involvement in Ranma's activities, Yuka and Sayuri had begun to plan their social schedule without including Akane. It wasn't meant to hurt her – they had even gone as far to plan to watch an upcoming movie together in a couple weeks – but she still felt the pain of isolation nonetheless.

So, she was sinking in a well of misery.

Not one to let her emotions take complete control – her anger notwithstanding – Akane glared at the white dress. It was taunting her, forcing her to look at everything she couldn't have. She couldn't have Ranma, she couldn't carry on the dojo on her own (Japanese law, though outdated, was very clear about that), and she couldn't have her old life back. But she would destroy every reminder of the day, at least within reason.

She stood and flicked on her bedroom light, creating somewhat of a flare to the immediate vicinity. Rummaging around in her desk until she found the items she was looking for, she followed that by lifting her dress carefully from its hanger. The seam ripper gleamed maliciously in the artificial light. There were shears for the pieces of fabric that were a bit large but first things first…

There were a lot of seams.

* * *

The roof was Ranma's place of solace. Sure enough, plenty of bad things had occurred up here, his first introduction to Kodachi standing out in stark relief, but that wasn't why he came up there. Though he doubted anyone would believe it, he actually was secretly fond of stargazing.

When he was little and the old man was already deep asleep, he used to count stars until he fell asleep. They were harder to see here, where the city lights interfered with the eye's ability to see them, but there they were all the same. He remembered coming up with his own names for the shapes that he could make out and realized that Akane probably knew all the actual constellations.

He briefly wondered if she could be persuaded to teach them to him. Maybe if he just asked…

As if the thought itself were a cue, Akane's light flared to life. If he'd been on the other side of the roof above his room, he might not have noticed but he'd long ago picked up the habit of congregating on the area of the roof that was just above his fiancée's bedroom. Further thought might have led him down a spiral of truly deep thinking as to the reason why he did that but Ranma was not good at the thinking-deep thing.

Curious, he crawled stealthily to the edge of the roof and slowly tilted himself into an upside-down perch. He was quiet, carefully so that Akane wouldn't find a reason to notice him and have yet another reason to call him a pervert. His eyes went wide as he slowly put the picture before him together into something that made sense.

She was destroying her dress.

His face pulled into a mask of regret and concern as he remembered what she had looked like on that day. Utterly beautiful and a little old-fashioned but completely his. The intensity of his feelings had caused him to fight against them automatically, leading to him taking back the three words that he'd meant the most in his entire life.

_I love you, Akane. Why is it so hard to admit that to your face?_

But he knew. He knew it was because he didn't know about her feelings. It should have been obvious; after all, she had nearly died for him. If that didn't show how much she cared, then what would? However, it still scared him that maybe she didn't care so much that she was just completely inept.

That kind of thinking was cruel and cheapened Akane's obvious abilities as a martial artist. After all, before him and all the crazy people that followed and their crazy-good skills, she had been the best, knocking out boy after boy and Kuno every day before school even began. But Ranma knew he needed to face that it might be true. Akane was highly altruistic, giving away aid wherever it was needed, whether it was a stranger or a rival, and she had a tendency to stick her nose in where it was least wanted.

Her destruction of the dress was important but something he still couldn't quite grasp. He knew it was bad and familiar guilt built up in his chest, even though he was quite sure he wasn't at fault.

Well, they were going back to school tomorrow. Maybe the morning light and the normal routines would put a brighter spin on things.

* * *

Her room bore no evidence of the catharsis of the previous night. Only someone who knew her habits and what she carried within her bookbag on a normal basis could even begin to guess where the remnants of the dress were now. After all, with the exception of long-past jaunts into her room and the occasional tutor session, the only people that frequented this room were her and P-Chan when he was home.

It was the knock at her door that made her realize that she had slept far longer than she'd meant. While ripping the dress to shreds had helped to stem the tide of her anger, Akane didn't like the sadness and regret that was left behind. Maybe the anger – at her rivals for ruining her perfect moment, at Happosai for stealing the one thing that could have made it worthwhile for Ranma, at Ranma for not seeing any of it, but mostly at herself for having all these feelings to begin with – was what had been keeping her upright for so long. Now she just felt deflated.

Flying through her room to at least keep up the motions of a regular day, donning the uniform and brushing her somewhat unruly hair, she didn't even have time to eat breakfast before she was running out the door. However, she didn't miss Kasumi's worried gaze or her father's weak half-smile. Even though she was acting normal, she could still feel the bookbag at her side almost like a burning brand.

Before of her late start, her original half-plotted plan had been to leave before Ranma was finished with breakfast and disappear. It had been an okay plan – he would assume she'd beat him to the school and she wouldn't be bothered for a while. As much as this new watchfulness of his made her feel… noticed, she wanted to be out from under his eye for a bit. As it stood, she would have to think up a new plan.

Fortunately, Ranma couldn't keep a watch over her every moment of every day. In fact, the first thing in the morning, they were often separated for a few minutes, quite enough time for her to slip away before anyone noticed. She stalled at her locker for longer than normal and surreptitiously watched Ranma get more and more impatient until he finally turned on his heel and into the classroom outside of which he had been waiting.

The fact that they'd managed to slip seamlessly back into the normal routine hurt somehow. It was as if the weekend had never happened, as if China and the wedding that followed had never occurred. Even as she slipped out of a side exit, cleanly evading anyone that might ask questions, she could feel every heartbeat like a pain in her chest and throat. She had hopped over the fence and was halfway to the canal before she came back to herself enough to realize she could pull out of stealth mode.

Being stealthy and sneaky wasn't something that she often did. Her father had beaten it into her instincts that those kinds of tactics were extremely dishonorable. Alternately, though, it was interesting that the sneakiest people she knew were in her own family or the Saotomes'. However, today was necessary – while she could drudge through the academic part of school easily enough, dealing with everything else that a typical day at school entailed was still a bit beyond her capacity.

Once she was near enough to the canal, she slipped through a thin crack in the fence, continuing doggedly until she was at the bridge. She placed herself in the dark shadows of the bridge, paranoia and a small voice telling her that Ranma would likely search for her soon. But she wanted to be left alone for a while to mourn the tattered remnants of her life.

Slowly and deliberately, she unlatched her bookbag, gazing disconsolately at the fluffy white material that mocked her from within. Careful of her own balance as she leaned over the canal's stream, she upended the container, watching shredded chiffon and tulle drift away. The material instantly soaked up the water but still managed to float.

Akane finally collapsed to her knees, her eyes only on the result of last night's destruction. She didn't feel better. In fact, if not for the heavy weight on her chest, she was afraid she might not be feeling anything at all.

* * *

Mousse felt that he was forever pushing his glasses up on his face in order to see clearly. Crossing through Nerima didn't always demand perfect vision but today he wanted it. The old ghoul decided to grant him the first half of the day off, mostly because Shampoo kept glaring at him to the point that it was disturbing her work.

Coming from an Amazon village, he was used to being seen as a nuisance. In fact, he was one of the few men of his generation to have combat skills at all. After all, men were breeders to the Joketsuzoku women and were mostly good for nothing. Recently, he had been asking himself why he didn't fight Shampoo for the right of marriage, for a village member had a greater claim than an outsider, but he already knew the problem in that situation. He couldn't, for the life of him, lay a hand on Shampoo in anger.

Because he had just pressed his eyeglasses up against his face, he managed to approach the bridge in time to see a lot of white drifting down the river canal. He glanced at the other side of the bridge, idly wondering if the river was rushing. No… it was calm. So, what was with all the white?

"Baka," he heard. The voice was very soft, much too soft for someone that wasn't almost blind and hadn't compensated with their hearing as a result. In short, someone that wasn't Mousse wouldn't have heard it or been able to identify the owner of the voice. It was undoubtedly Miss Akane Tendo but she often yelled that epithet quite vehemently and Ranma was often in the vicinity.

Not thinking about the consequences, he jumped over the edge of the bridge, angling to that he would strike the far shore instead of the water. As was suited to a master of the Hidden Weapon Technique, his aim was dead-on. "Akane?"

The girl looked up at him and what the Chinese male saw in her eyes scared him deeply. He hadn't told anyone but he felt very bad about what happened in Jusendo and even worse about the events at the Tendo house afterward. Her big brown eyes, usually animated with anger or joy, were empty and sad. Finally, he cast a glance at the white stuff floating down the river and returned his eyes to her and the satchel at her side. There were pieces of soft white material clinging to the edges.

Soft… White… Her wedding dress?

"Mousse?" she finally inquired softly.

He walked closer to her, pressing his glasses against his face once again. Tears were steadily leaking out of her eyes and his appearance seemed to have done little to dissuade their journey. He finally knelt next to her, facing the girl rather than the water that could so easily alter his species. "What's wrong?"

Akane laughed but the sound of it, watery and bitter, seemed to echo the heartache of yearning and disappointment that Mousse himself felt every day. "Everything." She sighed and seemed to shake herself and he wondered if she was trying to force herself out of the funk. "Did you know I've always wanted to get married?"

Mousse jolted slightly. She had… wanted that? "No," he answered simply, his mind opening up to a truth that had never occurred to him. What did any of them truly know about Akane? That she was violent and quick to anger and couldn't cook very well (or at all, if Ranma was to be believed)? "I don't think I know much about you at all," he added, declaring aloud the thought in his head.

She looked at him sharply and he cringed at the movement alone, though her face bore no malice but only disbelief. After a moment of her eyes searching his face quite avidly, she laughed again, a brief sound brimming with relief. "It's okay," she informed him softly. It was that comment that made him realize that his face was expressing the self-blame and stricken sadness that he felt.

It was odd to see it happen, to actually see one of Akane's mood changes. Just seconds before, she had been almost emptied out because of sadness but he could see her eyes slowly fill up with compassion and concern. It was almost like seeing the sun rise or Shampoo's glee when she mastered another one of Cologne's mysterious techniques.

At the thought of the purple-haired Amazon, Mousse sighed. It had only taken two minutes for his mind to circle back to her. Not record-breaking but it did prove that he could get her off his mind.

What mattered, though, was the girl in front of him. He had been raised that all women, even outsiders, could and would be above his own place of importance. As a breeder, though a very talented breeder, he felt extremely… guilty for never realizing that Akane was more than a rival to Shampoo, more than a martial artist with a penchant for malleting her fiancé into the stratosphere.

Japanese custom required a very deep bow, usually kneeling with one's forehead to the ground, for the most serious apologies. So, it was what Mousse did now. "Miss Tendo, I am deeply grieved at any affront I have given you."

She merely scoffed and hauled him upright again. "Mousse, stop it. I mean it."

"But…"

"I get that I'm wallowing but it's not your fault." She pushed her hair back when she realized it was sticking to her face, twisting a lock idly with a finger. "It's not really anyone's fault, I guess."

"I have to make it up to you," he said intently. "I should know better."

After a short beat of silence, Akane smiled, not quite a grin or what Ranma thought of as her 'cute smile' but a ghost of happiness in any case. "Mousse, have you ever been outside of Nerima?"


	2. In Which Mousse Notices Something

**A/N: Thanks for all the reviews! I'm going to try to write this story as quickly as I can manage around my classes because I have a couple other story ideas I wanna write. *sigh* The downside of being a writer - constantly having things you want to write. Enjoy the chapter!**

* * *

Akane tugged on the arm of Mousse's robe as she trailed around the edge of her family's house. She didn't want to take the chance that Kasumi was home and would catch her. While Uncle Saotome didn't care and her father would allow her this lapse after that horrible spectacle of a wedding, this was an area about which her oldest sister could be quite strict.

Obviously catching on to her stealthy insistence, Mousse continued alongside her, careful to make as little noise as possible. "What are we doing?" he whispered softly, the sound no more than a breath that drifted near her ear.

Akane sighed, angling the air out of her mouth to blow aside her bangs, and glanced pointedly at the bookbag in her hands that now held nothing more than a few scraps of what had been her veil. "I want to change and I have some money saved up."

His brow scrunched up in confusion. "What for?"

She rolled her eyes and stopping as they came to the area behind the house just under the window to her room. "I'm going to show you how to have fun in Tokyo," she answered simply, her eye gauging the distance to the roof. Even though she could still weakness in her body from the events in China, she was pretty sure she could make the lower roof.

"I have fun," the Chinese male responded defensively.

Akane arched an eyebrow at him. "Constantly working or fighting Ranma does not make for times of fun," she asserted mildly. "Just wait here. I'll be back." Taking a deep breath, she took a running jump at the house and smiled when her hands caught the edge of the roof. She used her arms to pull herself up in a way that didn't also accidentally flash her underwear at the Amazon male, choosing to ignore the slight tremor in her muscles.

Once on the roof, it was easy to pad to her window and slide it open. Her room was dark and silent, her only sanctuary in the world. She slipped inside and began to shed her school uniform, moving to her closet to stare down her choices. Because of her internal need to be more feminine, she often wore dresses but today required something a little more casual and trendy. After a few moments of indecision, she finally pulled out the items she wanted to wear and donned them quickly.

Her idea was to take Mousse to Shibuya Ward, which actually had a couple different shopping districts. Since the moment he had made that stupid pledge to make up for whatever it was he thought he'd done, she decided she just needed to get her mind off recent events. As it was, she hadn't gone shopping in almost six months, meaning she had quite a lot of yen hiding in a false bottom in one of her desk drawers.

She grabbed it and some silver wrist bangles that Kasumi had given her for her birthday the year before. With a final glance around her room, she grabbed the window frame and slid fluidly out of her room. She closed the window and finally hopped off the roof, glad that getting down was so much easier than climbing up.

Mousse's eyes widened comically when he took in her appearance. "You look… different."

Pressing her lips together, Akane looked down at her outfit: a pair of shimmery jeans and a pale blue Hello Kitty t-shirt. "Ugly?" she asked disconsolately.

"No," he said hurriedly. "It's just… I've never seen you in something that wasn't a dress."

Smiling in relief, Akane pulled on Mousse's sleeve again. "Come on. We need to go to the Nekohanten before we can catch the train."

"Huh?" he replied in confusion. She waited for the recognition of everything she'd said. "What? Why?"

* * *

"I believe I made it quite clear that you were not to return until this afternoon," Cologne declared as soon as he walked into the restaurant.

Mousse cringed and bowed before the matriarch purely out of habit and respect rather than any sort of actual fear. "I beg your pardon, Elder Cologne."

Snorting softly, Akane nudged him with an elbow and pushed him forward gently. "Just ask. If we don't hurry, we'll be waiting at the station for an hour."

It was just before the brunch rush, meaning that there were customers but they were few. With their concentration on the gnarled matriarch, Mousse and Akane didn't notice Shampoo until she erupted from the kitchen, carrying a bowl of specialty ramen to be deposited before one of the customers. "What Violent Girl want with Mousse?" the purple-haired girl demanded.

To Mousse, Shampoo merely sounded angry, as she so often was with him, but Akane apparently found something else in her tone, because she just smiled knowingly. He was a little unnerved by the expression – where was the anger that she always seemed to have when it came to Shampoo?

Shaking his head clear of questions with no answers, he focused on Cologne again. "I came to request the remainder of the day off."

The Amazon elder narrowed her eyes at them, darting her focus between Mousse and Akane. "You may be required for the dinner rush," she admitted after a long moment.

"Fine," Akane said immediately. She wound her arm around one of Mousse's and proceeded to guide him out of the ramen shop. He could feel heat rush of his face, not because of any romantic yearning for Akane but more because he had very little contact with females… ever. "We'll be back by then."

As if she was under a compulsion to jab verbally with her rival, Shampoo called out to Akane before they exited. "Hammer Girl make it too too easy to take Airen back to village!" When the Japanese girl laughed in response, he knew that they heard the sound within.

Even as they ran to the train station to a destination he still wasn't quite sure on, he gave her a peculiar look. "Do you know something I don't?"

"She was jealous," Akane answered simply with a shrug of her shoulders.

Mousse stumbled to a stop, narrowly missing a fall to the ground by pulling on Akane's hand to stop her as well. "Well, maybe I should…" He trailed off, not exactly knowing what he was going to say or do. He felt torn.

For her part, Akane began to drag him in the direction of the train station but he managed to catch a flash of pity cross her face. "Come on, Gung Ho. Let's get away from here for a little while."

Irrationally angered by her expression, he ripped his hand loose from hers and glared into her brown eyes. "What do you know about anything of this, anyway? You can't even get married properly!" Even as the words left his mouth, he could feel his throat shrivel and close. How could he even say that to her? Was he… Was he turning into Ranma?

Tears immediately began to brim in Akane's eyes and she sniffled very softly, as if she was trying very hard not to make the sound. She opened her mouth but then shook her head and closed her mouth with a decisive click.

"I'm sorry, Akane," Mousse apologized, the words stumbling over each other in an effort to escape him. "I didn't mean it. I don't even know why I said that."

She nodded, the force of the movement causing a single tear to slide out of each eye. She began moving toward the station again, not even seeming to notice if he followed or not. He did, keeping a step behind and resolving to keep quiet until she spoke to him again.

One thing that very few people realized about Mousse's character was that his emotions were quite intense, though that particular characteristic was quite clear in his love of Shampoo. However, because the opinions of males were worth less than the dirt on which they trod, he had learned early in his life that there were few women with which his opinions could be trusted. His mother was one such person.

It scared him a little that, inside of an hour, he had begun to trust Akane to the point that he'd released such an outburst. It was stupid and the absolute wrong thing to say to her and he wanted most of all to know why he had even said it. It was so unlike him.

They were seated on the train before he finally figured it out. "You looked at me with pity," he said softly, wanting to spark a conversation but unwilling to bother her if she wanted it left alone.

When she looked up at him, her eyes were dry but full of that sadness that made him feel a sudden urge to throw many heavy projectiles at Saotome. "I didn't. It was… sympathy. They can get confused, I guess." She laughed but the sound was short and forced. "I'm sorry it made you mad."

"You don't need to apologize. I'm just frustrated."

Akane smiled, the curve of her lips more genuine than her laughter had been. "I know the feeling."

He stared at her, trying to figure her out once more, and let the silence settle around her. Placing his intent focus on someone other than Shampoo was like filtering out the rose-colored lenses and replacing them with a clear microscope. He had been around Ranma and the entourage of fiancées and rivals that seemed to congregate on him for long enough that he realized something.

She was different. Something about Akane herself had changed. In the entire time since they returned from China, he had not witnessed the excessive violence that had seemed so integral to her character. It was like a skin that had sloughed off but he wondered if it hadn't also taken something else with it, like her passion or her will.

"What happened?"

Akane arched a delicate eyebrow at him. "What makes you think something happened?" She was being evasive and they both knew it.

"You're different now, ever since Jusendo," he remarked simply. "Something changed."

Her face twisted into a rueful smirk. "Dying changes everything," she told him.

Mousse jerked with the jolt that those three words caused in him. Dying…? Flashes of the incident in China ran across his mind's eye – Akane shrinking from dehydration, Ranma breaking the faucet that returned her to normal size and somehow caused the springs to overflow, Ranma sitting on a bank and hitting himself in the face for saying something hurtful to Akane, Shampoo quietly asserting that Ranma would be all hers now. It occurred to him now that they'd all just assumed that Akane had been unconscious but otherwise fine. Oh, how could they have been so wrong?

"Dead?" Mousse finally inquired in a weak voice.

Akane nodded and a readjustment with his glasses revealed that she was staring off into a memory he couldn't see. "But I came back. For him. When I was… wherever it is that I was, I heard him say he loved me. You know, however it is that you hear there. With my soul, maybe. Only Kami knows."

"That's good, right?" He was confused by the desolate tone of her voice. It was so obvious that Ranma and Akane loved each other intensely, no matter what their bickering said about them. And if Ranma admitted his love to Akane, then he would reject his hold over Shampoo. "Isn't it?"

She swallowed thickly and pinned him with those sad eyes again. "He took it back."

Suddenly, the train's intercom system came to life, crackling slightly before a firm voice declared the location. "Shibuya Station. Take care with doors in motion."

Though their conversation had been morbid and depressing, Akane's face brightened and she grinned. She stood and Mousse echoed her movements as they exited the train. He wondered idly at her mood swings before deciding that they weren't too bad.

"First things first," she told him. "We've got to do something about your eyes."

* * *

Ranma waited impatiently for the first break of the day. After the latest progress report before the sudden trip to China, Nodoka had made him promise that he wouldn't just leave school in the middle of class anymore. Apparently, the teacher severely marked down his grades for jumping up and leaving in the middle of a lecture.

Stupid Hinako-sensei…

He had started to feel uneasy when Akane hadn't followed him within a few minutes of entering the classrom. She had just been at the lockers. However, by the time it was obvious that he needed to look for her, class had begun. Miss Hinako merely remarked on Akane's absence and continued to teach. With every minute that she lectured the class on the English language and proper pronunciation, Ranma could feel something in his gut clench painfully.

Anything could have happened. She could be sick (and that was the mildest thing Ranma's mind came up with). She could have gotten kidnapped again, she could have lapsed into whatever state she'd been in while they were in China, she could be dead… For the sake of his own sanity, his mind danced away from that last option and he waited impatiently for the break that heralded the end of English and the beginning of Japanese Literature.

Promises had always been important to him. However, promises made to his mother seem to take on a new importance, like a precious piece of stone that was for his eyes only. Maybe it was because he'd lived so long without a mother or the pain he'd witnessed in the eyes of any one of the Tendo girls when they knelt before their mother's shrine but mothers always seemed painfully special somehow.

Before Miss Hinako could notice and even think about sapping his ki, Ranma bundled up his stuff and quickly exited the classroom, quickly throwing an excuse of his shoulder when the teacher put forth a weirdly high-pitched inquiry. Not knowing that he was doing as such, he followed the path that Akane had taken to exit the school. The side exit and a hop over the fence was the best way to leave with minimal interference.

He jumped up on the fence and began scanning his surroundings, looking for any clues as to his missing fiancée's location. Suddenly, as if he was compelled, he turned his attention to the river canal. The water flowed calmly, mocking him for the wild emotions that held him taut as a drum. Something was… important about the urge to look at the water but he knew instinctively that whatever clue it may have held was long gone now.

"Airen!"

Sighing, Ranma attempted to quash his anger at the sound of Shampoo's voice and turned to face her. His mind flashed to an image of the young Chinese girl and who he thought was his best friend in the entire world working together, using Ukyo's explosive okonomiyaki in an attempt to take out Akane at the failed wedding. He scowled for a moment but managed to finally school his expression. "What is it, Shampoo?"

"Airen take Shampoo on date after delivery?" She looked hopeful but there was something underneath the surface. It was something that made the boy wonder if someone had irritated her recently.

"Not right now. I'm looking for Akane." He cast another look toward the bridge, which meant that he wasn't looking at the young Amazon when a calculating smile flashed across her face.

"Oh? Shampoo know where Violent Girl is."

Ranma looked back at her quickly, his face disturbingly raw with his absolute need to know. "Where? Shampoo, you gotta tell me."

She sniffed softly, turning her nose up slightly. "Come with price," she warned.

He frowned and his expression turned dark, reminding the girl that he had recently killed a god of her country. Granted, it was a phoenix god of rebirth and thus hadn't actually died, per se, but that was beside the point. "Tell me." His voice was as dark, his tone low and dangerous.

In response, Shampoo pushed her feet at the pavement once, causing the bike to roll back a little and putting some distance between her and Ranma. "Akane with Mousse. They take train."

"Where?" he demanded, his scary countenance fading somewhat.

She shrugged and looked away. "Not know. Mousse be back by dinner, he say."

Ranma huffed. "Why would Akane be with that stupid duck-boy, anyway?"

As she didn't know the answer to that question and still felt a distinct need to put space between herself and her alleged husband, Shampoo left, ostensibly to deliver whatever was in the ramen box. Ranma barely registered her quick and efficient exit.

Darting across Nerima to the train station, he ruminated on his new problem. Putting aside that his fiancée was with Mousse, of all people, he had no clue where they had gone. He needed a plan and only one seemed suitable: to wait until they returned.


	3. In Which Mousse Has A Plan

**A/N: Yay! An update! Thanks, everybody, for the reviews! I do apologize if anything seems somewhat OOC - I don't think I wrote Mousse or Akane or Ranma too terribly but the comment might be made.**

* * *

In the span of six hours, Mousse had learned enough about Akane to make his head spin: how she felt about her mother's death, why blue was her favorite color, how she would want to be an actress if she didn't need to carry on her father's school of Anything Goes Martial Arts, and so on and so forth. Additionally, she had likely learned more about him than was the combined knowledge of the Joketsuzoku village, things like how he had fallen in love with Shampoo and how hard it had been to leave the familiarity of the village behind.

Among all the intricacy that was Akane Tendo, he found that there were two things that accurately showed who she was: her kindness and her self-deprecation. The first had been rather obvious at the first stop – the Kato Eye Clinic. There, he'd gone through an eye exam, was fitted for new glasses and learned how to use contact lenses. With her patience and gentle guidance, he'd managed to get around his reflexes enough to master the technique of inserting the lenses before he had the chance to blink or destroying the lens, which he was wont to do when his eyelids won a round. It was here that Akane spent what she later admitted was half the yen in her wallet to pay for all that had been done.

They had spent the rest of their trip to Shibuya alternating between the clothing shops and the electronics stores. Akane had donned wild combinations of outfits in order to make him laugh and introduced him to video games. While he didn't see the point to some of the fighting games – why fight with a controller when you do it constantly in real life? – he shared her enthusiasm with some of the RPG platform games. However, almost every time he found the time to curse himself for not doing anything for Akane, he would notice her putting herself down, referring to herself with words he usually only heard from Ranma's mouth. When that happened, he would close his eyes and pull something completely random from his robes.

When he had pulled out a rubber ducky – where had that come from, anyway? – she'd laughed merrily, erasing the faint lines of sadness on her face. She had also claimed a nearby Sharpie and marked the bright yellow toy with his name in the Chinese characters, which he had not expected, placing the duck on the top of his head. He had rolled his eyes but left it there for most of the day, earning several odd looks from passersby.

Now, they were unloading from the train, back in Nerima and all the chaos that entailed. Being in Shibuya with Akane had been a different experience, showing him exactly how odd the events that surrounded Ranma truly were. He had been at peace for a while and his thoughts had drifted over to Shampoo very little.

His mood immediately soured when he caught the flash of a black pigtail, his face twisting into a frown. "We've got company," he warned Akane softly.

The shorter Japanese girl flicked a glance up at Mousse's face. "I know. He's probably been waiting there for hours."

Mousse turned wide eyes onto the girl. Though he hated how he was constantly surprised by it, she had gotten a lot more insightful lately. "How do you know?"

"He's been pretty overprotective since… we came back. Barely leaves me alone long enough to take a bath." Though the words themselves hinted at irritation, he could hear the tenderness there. Shaking herself slightly, she tilted her head upward, an almost… tired expression spreading across her face.

The next thing Mousse knew, he could hear the air change, the sound of Ranma's body arcing toward him as loud as a strong breeze to the Amazon male's ears. He quickly sidled out of the way, twisting his body both to avoid the blow and to protect the bags that he'd insisted on carrying.

"Maybe I should take those," Akane remarked softly.

Mousse slid into a stance singular to masters of the Hidden Weapon Technique, waiting for Ranma to make another move or attempt to jibe him. He watched out of the corner of his eye, a new experience that he found himself extremely grateful to Akane for, as the girl in question snatched the bags that contained of plethora of items ranging from new clothes for the girl to a strange multi-weapon that Mousse hadn't been able to look away from.

"Duck-boy! Where'd you take my fiancée?"

Mousse slid his gaze to Akane, who had taken a seat on a near bench. She looked extremely bored. After a moment, she began to rummage through the bags. He idly wondered what she was looking for.

"I offered to accompany her, Saotome. That is all." He'd tried to say it as calmly and reassuringly as possible but somehow knew he came off as condescending.

"C'mon, Mousse. That's bull—"

A loud squeaking noise interrupted Ranma before he could attempt the verbal spar. When they both looked back at Akane, she looked up at them innocently, holding the rubber duck harmlessly in her hand. "What?" She made a dismissive gesture with her free hand. "As you were."

Mousse moved back into his stance, knowing not to let down his guard around Ranma. However, he was still unsurprised when the boy in question focused on Akane instead. "You're not wearing your uniform."

Akane arched her eyebrow at the martial artist. "Noticed that, did ya?" Mousse could tell she was intentionally goading him, pulling his attention away from the fight.

"I'm not stupid," Ranma barked defensively, reacting to a tone that had barely been present.

"Could've fooled me," she rejoined. Again, Mousse noticed that she was trying to inject her voice with the condescension that it normally held but it wasn't quite there.

"Uncute tomboy!" The Chinese teenager turned his attention to Ranma for a moment, unsure why he'd resorted to the familiar insult so quickly. That was extremely odd – he was a lot quicker to anger than normal. Even though he knew he wouldn't see what he had heard, he still searched the boy's face for it anyway, that desperate pain.

However, it was obvious that Akane reacted to the words themselves, though Mousse was unsure if it was out of habit or for another reason that he had yet to gauge. Her eyes emptied of emotion, creating a hollow space, but her face still maintained the angry frown that was the usual response to Ranma's insults.

So, that begged the question: if she was so sad now and could still hold that expression convincingly, how long had she been faking their fights?

_The wedding was just two days ago and she said she wanted to just be free of it for a day, didn't she? So, get her away from him, baka!_ his mind yelled.

"Akane?" he called softly, the decision made. She turned to look at him, her eyes wide in an inquiring expression. "You promised to show me how that thing works, right?"

She smiled, though the form of it was the epitome of politeness, and he could see emotion flow back into her brown eyes. Oddly enough, he felt relieved. It was scary how the feeling just washed over him, like cool rain on an exceptionally hot day. He knew it wasn't love because even the infatuation he had for Shampoo was a wild ride, emotional highs and lows whenever he turned around, and this feeling was like comfort.

"What were you doing?" he whispered to her when she returned to his side. And concern, that was new too. There was never a need to worry for Shampoo, despite being more than willing to fight for her honor. "Were you trying to start a fight?"

She blushed lightly, infusing her pale face with a bit more color. "I just…" She ducked her head slightly. "Today was actually an okay day. I didn't want to have to send you back to the Cat Café with bruises."

Mousse's face softened. He could hear what she was trying not to say, because Ranma was still in earshot. She didn't want him to get hurt and that thought alone melted the last barrier, causing his face to break out in a broad smile. "So, we're friends now?" he asked softly.

Akane's head jerked, the lines of her forehead wrinkling before her lips echoed his own smile. "Of course we're friends. Baka," she added with a soft punch to his arm, the light twinkle in her eye telling him that the verbal jab was friendly and teasing, not serious.

As they walked away from him, Mousse could hear Ranma murmur something to himself. "What just happened?"

* * *

Mousse walked into the Nekohanten, the happy weight of his new weapon pulling down very slightly on his robe. If he was lucky, not even Cologne would notice the change but he wasn't counting on luck tonight. It had been the best day he'd had in years and that kind of luck just couldn't hold.

"Mousse have fun with Violent Girl?" _There, perfect example,_ he thought to himself. He sidled past the purple-haired Amazon to face Cologne, who would be the judge of which way this night's mood would sway. Shampoo's taunt didn't carry the sting they usually did or maybe he just couldn't hear past the nasally, simpering tone of her voice.

"If I'd known you were this interested in the girl, I would have made arrangements with her family many months ago." He instantly knew that Cologne's claim was false. The elder had no respect for Akane – the warrior of the Tendo clan and to be considered the Tendo matriarch by any Amazon – and even less regard for her father, both a man and useless despite his ability to breed female consistently.

However, he knew it would be a mistake to ignore the Amazon matriarch as he had her great-great-granddaughter. "You know I have no romantic interest in Akane," he replied instantly, tilting his tone as snide and disrespectful as he could manage.

Just as he hoped, his ploy worked. The old ghoul narrowed her eyes in an effective glare, causing him to hunch in himself a little bit, and pointed regally at the kitchen. It was supposed to be a punishment, exiled to the heat and constant work of ramen-making, but Mousse would rather be there, where he was more at home with the many utensils required for cooking. Besides, cooking ramen was the one thing in this accursed restaurant that required very little skill and kept him away from the customers. So, ultimately, he was usually relegated to this position.

Being in here, away from the prying eyes of his Amazon superiors, the duck-boy allowed himself to reflect on the day again, this time on his experience at the Tendo Dojo rather than his time in the Shibuya shopping district. It had been a… different experience, to say the least.

With his contact lenses, he was able to see everything and what a difference that had made as well! As Akane had mentioned that she had expected for some time, his thick glasses were not his prescription. It wasn't surprising – Joketsuzoku warriors placed a high level of disgust on the weakness of nearsightedness and before today, he had never had a proper eye examination. The doctor, Kato-sensei, had exclaimed quite vehement that he was never to wear his glasses ever again, as they were of a much higher prescription than what he actually required and had likely already done quite a bit of damage to his eyes already.

As it was, the doctor asserted that they would have a new set of glasses and a year's worth of contact lenses ready for him by Saturday, at which point Akane had offered to accompany him again. He was grateful for that fact, for the Shibuya Ward of Tokyo was quite a bustling place, undulating with human activity. Despite the amount of time that they'd spent in Japan, Mousse was still inherently accustomed to the quiet but intense activity of the Amazon village in China. This time, though, he would be sure to be prepared with his own money, sure in his own mind that there was no way he could ever pay Akane back properly.

Contrary to what Ranma's interactions brought out in the shorter girl, Akane was actually a happy person. Even now, she had reason to wallow in dejection and despair. After all, as she'd pointed out, she had been left at the altar, her wedding had been ruined utterly, her family's precious dojo had nearly been completely destroyed, and Ranma's cure had been obliterated. This last had been said as if it were the most important aspect of the weekend's activities, though he had seen her sadness every time her eyes looked toward the dojo.

He knew something about that was important. She didn't care that her father had forced her into the wedding or the ramifications of the gossip that had likely already spread through Nerima; she cared about Ranma's cure and about the dojo. Mousse decided that he would ask her why it was so important someday.

Besides being naturally happy, Akane was actually quite skilled, something he'd later realized someone would have to know her life in its entirety to truly perceive. Her mother had died when she was quite young – six years of age, he believed she'd said – just a year after she'd first begun training under her father. And after that… well, nothing could be gleaned from her through direct questioning. From the slight shame that her face had shown for a split-second, he guessed that Tendo-san had collapsed in grief, still maybe only a shadow of himself ten years later. That meant that nearly everything that Akane knew was self-trained.

Then, there was her skill with weaponry. While she wasn't as talented as Mousse, who had trained with every weapon he could find since he could walk and later learned the technique of perfectly concealing said weapons, she was more skilled with weapons than she was with hand-to-hand. She didn't know it, though, which was strange. She had handled the multi-weapon with ease, splitting the bo-like weapon into its three components: a spear, a blunted javelin that could easily be sharpened, and a long-range dart gun. He personally felt he had no use for the latter but it was always good to be prepared.

Lastly, there was Ranma and the obvious effect he had on Akane. Throughout the afternoon, he avoided them, though he had found several excuses to interrupt them – stomping out of the house to perform katas, to ask if they needed something to drink or eat (a blatant relay from Kasumi), to glare at Mousse, and finally to stare at them from the apex of the roof. At that location, he had been far enough away that he couldn't really hear their conversations but close enough that it obviously made the girl uncomfortable. Half the time, when she looked at Ranma, Akane seemed caught between tears and frustration. Unless of course he happened to be looking back... It was at those times that her face was arranged into a careful mask of a mocking sneer.

Habit, Mousse assumed, knowing that their back-and-forth insulting banter had been part of their interactions long before any of Ranma's other fiancées had deigned to appear. After all, he knew it was quite difficult to break out of routines – he'd been professing his undying love for Shampoo for so long that he scarcely knew of any other way to act around her.

"Mousse! Is closing time!" Shampoo's voice broke him out of his mental wanderings and he glanced down. He cursed silently at the large pot of ramen before him. He'd done it again! So lost was he in chastising himself that he barely noticed the young Amazon as she peeked into the kitchen. "Good! Shampoo know Mousse always make too much."

"Good?" Mousse echoed uncertainly, arching an eyebrow at her.

"Yes!" She smiled that smirk that he knew instinctively meant Ranma would be in the next sentence. "This way Shampoo bring husband too-too delicious ramen tomorrow. For lunch," she added as an afterthought before flouncing upstairs to the living area.

Mousse looked down at the pot before covering it up, a slow grin slipping across his face. The thought was evil, almost as bad as the days when he was constantly trying to think of ways to defeat Ranma, but this had another point altogether. If he could pay back Akane for her kindness and make Ranma jealous in one fell swoop, it would be worth the time.

Pushing his sleeves up, the Chinese male took the pot that contained the ramen and stored into in the refrigerator. Shampoo would likely find it in the morning and reheat it and add her own embellishments, though he idly hoped she had finally stopped spicing it with things that would attempt to turn his love to her. After all, Akane had admitted to returning to the land of the living for Ranma – their bond may be too strong to any Chinese magic to break.

But Shampoo's need to feed her 'husband' gave Mousse the idea to bring Akane lunch the next day. After a moment of indecision, he decided to prepare pork buns and a plate of bó bing, a type of Chinese crepe. He laughed deep in his throat – it was time that Ranma knew what Akane felt when his other fiancées fed him, for he certainly knew what it was he felt when Shampoo ran off to feed Ranma.


	4. In Which A Secret Is Revealed

**A/N: Can I just say how much I love my reviewers, even the ones that threaten bodily harm? Probably especially the ones that threaten bodily harm. I did my best and pushed out another chapter in a day. So, here you go! Ranma might seem a little OOC toward the end but I just want to remind everyone that, in my mind, he went through some pretty fundamental changes at Jusendo. Thanks for the reviews!**

* * *

Akane tapped her pencil against the surface of her desk in a soft rhythm, thumping the eraser in time to the ticking of the clock. Hinako-sensei instructed their math section as an adult woman because a few of the boys had returned from their break late, meaning that a couple of the students were just now regaining their energy in time for lunch.

So far, this day was far less enjoyable than the previous.

Her days didn't usually start the best lately anyway because of the nightmares, which she thought were getting worse. But who knew? It could just be the exhaustion catching up to her. Her morning jog always helped a little – getting out into the open air and ramping up her pulse rate just enough to prove to herself that she was alive. Everything was real and good and… normal. This morning's run had likely heralded the omen that would foretell the rest of the day: when she had reversed to return home, she had accidentally done it in such a way that could have torn one of the ligaments connected to her knee. If that had happened, it could have ruined any chance she had to carry on her father's school.

Was it a subconscious Freudian thing or was it again just a result of her lack of sleep?

Breakfast would have been fine but Ranma just had to remark on how much fun she'd had on her so-called date the day before. That had sent their fathers through the roof, even though her own had previously put his foot down (for once) and indefinitely postponed their own engagement until the others were dealt with. Not wanting to deal with her father's tears or her eldest sister's disapproving expression, she'd pushed her food aside and left for school, barely remembering to grab her bookbag by the door. (She had remembered the night before to store her books back into the small satchel.)

As such, she had obviously forgotten her bento.

Additionally, there had been Ukyo and Kuno. Ukyo had joined them on their walk to school, completely unwarranted, and proceeded to gush at Ranma while ignoring Akane entirely. While enduring that was a trial on its own, she'd had to deal with Kuno once they actually reached Furinkan. He had been spouting something about the wedding… What was it again? Oh, yes.

"Now that Saotome has forsaken thee at the altar, thou art free to date with me, Akane Tendo!"

She nearly broke her pencil in half just thinking about it. Taking a deep breath, she made herself think of yesterday, seeing Mousse actually carefree for the first time ever, a small yellow rubber duck adorning the top of his black hair, marked as 'Mu Tzu' in the correct Chinese characters. She remembered how it had surprised him but she really only knew how to write the Amazon's names, nothing more.

"Time for lunch!" Hinako-sensei caroled as her adult body finally shrank down into its normal childlike form.

When her stomach grumbled, a low irritated sound, Akane frowned and looked around the room. Sometimes, when she forgot her own lunch, Yuka and Sayuri would share with her but there was that whole not-really-friends-anymore thing in the way now and if she remembered correctly, they were dieting together to prepare for the upcoming break. She sighed and rested her head on her arms, tilting her head very slightly in Ranma's direction.

Despite the recent events, he seemed to be adjusting back quite easily, chatting with Hiroshi and Daisuke. Of course, he was always able to bounce back readily; she was the one that seemed to be forever flailing in the dark and always just a step behind. She rolled her eyes and turned away from the sight when Ukyo approached him shyly. If the day was any indication, Shampoo would be showing up any minute.

She got quite a surprise when she faced forward again to meet a big pair of blue-green eyes. "Gah!" she shrieked, instinctively shielding her face.

Mousse laughed in a low chuckle. "Hey," he greeted softly. "It is lunchtime, right?"

Akane could have sworn he seemed kind of nervous. She smiled sweetly at him, trying to set him at ease. "Yeah, but some stupid jerk mouthed off at breakfast and I forgot my lunch."

"I heard that!" Ranma remarked, the sound slightly muffled. She glanced back and realized her guess was correct – Shampoo was there now. Between Ukyo, the Amazon, and the crowd that tended to surround him whenever stuff like this happened, he probably couldn't see her or Mousse but he had apparently heard the insult.

"Leave it to him," she murmured softly, a gentle smile tugging at her lips. Then her stomach growled again and her expression turned sour. "Jerk."

"It's a good thing I made you some food then, isn't it?" Akane turned quickly to face Mousse again, her eyes widening as the two plates now adorning her desk: one with pork buns (she assumed it was pork, anyway) and the other with some Chinese fruit-filled dessert that she'd never seen before. "This is okay, right?"

Akane looked up from the food to Mousse's eager-to-please expression and then back down to the food, feeling weak to the offering instantly. But on the other hand, food was always something that was offered to influence Ranma to be a particular person's husband; so, in her experience, it had a bit of a romantic connotation. "Mousse, you know I…" She looked up at him, trailing off as she pleaded with her eyes for him to understand.

He frowned slightly and then his eyes widened after a moment. Gesturing directly at his eyes, he stated, "These see only Shampoo. I just…" He looked away and took a deep breath. "I don't know how to be someone's friend. I've never had one before."

Smiling, Akane immediately grabbed a pork bun and began eating, trying her best not to inhale her food as the Saotomes did and feeling the pressure of having to let Mousse down gently lifting off her chest. She really should have known better. In any case, this was familiar ground – she could be friends with a guy easily but it was the romantic feelings for Ranma that continuously made her feel a step out of step. "Why not?" she asked as the food began to settle in her stomach, quelling its many protests.

"Training," he answered simply, looking back at her finally. She could see pain there and uncertainty.

She nodded to his answer, understanding the implications behind it. As far as she could tell, the Amazon culture was extremely serious about the training of their children, meaning that everyone else was a possible rival or a sensei but usually not a friend. Her own upbringing would have been similar but her natural need to help others meant that she had ingratiated herself to her classmates early on. Pointing at the dessert, she decided to change the subject. "What's this?"

Mousse smiled gently. "We call it bó bing, a crepe-like dessert using very thin pancake-like bing."

"And bing is?" she queried further.

"Uh…" His eyes were still looking at her but there was a distance now, like he was trying to remember something. "It's a… flatbread? There are several recipes that use bing and this is one of the few desserts."

Narrowing her eyes in concentration, she picked out one of the fruits in the dessert to examine and identify it. Then her eyes widened in elation. "Ume!" she exclaimed.

He grinned at her expression. "I thought you might like plums."

"But… but they're not in season yet!"

"Cologne found a way to keep fruits fresh a long time ago." Mousse brought a finger up to his lips in a 'hush' gesture. "Amazon secret. These are from last season."

Akane laughed, feeling like maybe today wasn't so bad after all. "I promise I won't ask."

Silence fell over them as Akane ate the bó bing and Mousse watched. The female found that she would have found this odd in someone that she knew wasn't a cook but working at the Nekohanten, he had to spend a lot of time in the kitchen. As it was, she knew that Kasumi loved to watch the family eat, like it was some sort of affirmation of her apparent skill. In other situations, like if it were Ranma instead of Mousse, she would have likely been extremely nervous and jittery.

After a long moment, Mousse cleared his throat, causing Akane to look up at him. "I'm sorry." She arched an eyebrow at him, confused about why he should be apologizing. "About the wedding."

Akane could feel her expression darkening at the memory and it took some real focus not to allow herself to fall into the despair that seemed to be creeping up on her a little more every day. "It's not your fault."

"If it's not too… nosy of me, I think you should tell Ranma."

Akane was about to shake her head quite vehemently when she heard a response from behind her. "Tell me what?"

* * *

Ranma couldn't say that he was especially surprised when he was surrounded by people and plied with both okonomiyaki and ramen. As it was lunchtime, he was hungry enough to eat a horse and more than a little peeved at Akane still. Even as he ate the food both Ukyo and Shampoo gave him, he didn't taste it. Most of his thought process still centered on the tomboy.

She had spent most of the previous day with Mousse. Duck-boy! Of all people! And even after he'd found her again, she'd managed to diffuse their fight and still proceeded to ignore Ranma in favor of the Chinese male. All of that meant that there was still a large amount of possessive fear masquerading as anger running through his system.

This morning, he'd thought that starting an argument between her and her father would do the trick. Surely, she'd argue with Soun and then turn around to blame it all on him and they'd insult each other and that would be the end of it. It would have given an outlet for all of this tension at least. But no… she just walked away and in his haste to catch up to her, he'd left his lunch behind. Additionally, because Ukyo had joined them on the morning walk in order to monopolize his attention, it hadn't occurred to him until much later that Akane had left her bento behind as well.

In fact, the realization struck just as he finished Ukyo's okonomiyaki and was about to move on to Shampoo's specialty (but magic spice-less) ramen. "Wait, Akane forgot her lunch!" he exclaimed suddenly.

Although she had been about to instigate a quarrel with the okonomiyaki chef, Shampoo stopped and beamed a smile at him. "Ranma no worry. Mousse bring Pervert Girl lunch. She fine."

Ranma arched an eyebrow at the Amazon female, just barely managing to keep the chill of his gaze to a minimum. "Akane's not a pervert."

Shampoo tilted her head at him and placed a hand on her hip. "She live with Shampoo husband and now date Mousse. What you call it?"

The chopsticks in his hands were obliterated before he could realize that he felt the urge to destroy something. He stood up and stretched tall on his feet in order to look past the people around him. Shampoo was right – there Akane was, talking animatedly with her hands to Mousse. Once he heard her laugh, a musical and carefree sound that Ranma didn't like to admit that he'd been hearing less and less of late, he pushed through the crowd in order to complete the second round of confrontation that he'd begun the day before.

"It's not your fault," Akane was telling Mousse quietly. What wasn't his fault? A million possibilities ran through Ranma's head, each one more chilling than the last: that Shampoo clung to Ranma so much, that the wedding had been a disaster, that the springs of Jusenkyo were no more, or… that she didn't have feelings for Ranma? He clenched his teeth even as a small part of him howled in despair and took another step forward.

"If it's not too… nosy of me, I think you should tell Ranma." Mousse's voice was achingly sincere and those soulful eyes of his were gazing into Akane's own brown ones.

Before she even had a chance to reply, Ranma decided he couldn't take it anymore. "Tell me what?"

Akane whipped around, looking at him with wide brown eyes, and he was careful not to return the gaze. Lately, whenever he looked into her eyes, he always seemed to get sucked down into a whirlpool of weird tension and… longing. It felt so… unmanly. She almost immediately turned back to Mousse. "No," she ground out in such a way that Ranma knew instantly that she was clenching her teeth together.

"I'll tell him then," Mousse offered instantly.

"Don't you dare." Akane's voice was low and dangerous and it occurred to Ranma that she could actually be scary. When she was fighting with him, it was all he could do just to keep from losing ground but seeing her this way with someone else… It was an experience and he was almost distracted from the fact that he sorely wanted to know what was going on.

"He's never going to figure it out on his own. Someone has to tell him."

Akane gripped the side of her desk in what looked to be a painfully tight grip. "That doesn't mean someone should."

"What is going on?" Ranma exclaimed finally, the volume of his voice catching both of their attentions.

"She died, you dolt," Mousse replied just as forcefully.

"Mousse!" Akane yelled, the tone of her voice implying that she was very unhappy with him now. Ranma didn't have time to revel in the fact that she was now angry with the Chinese duck-boy as he was plunged into the horrifying memory of Akane, unconscious and unresponsive. She'd really been dead then, as in real and true and permanent death?

"What you talk about, Mousse? Akane here, she fine," Shampoo said, the words slow and spaced out as if she were speaking to a particularly dim child.

"Akane… Akane died?" Ukyo asked, her voice small.

Ranma's attention was then pulled to the murmuring that was beginning to spread around the room. Of course this would be the new gossip. When were their lives not going to be a part of town and/or high school gossip?

"Shampoo's right. She's fine," Ranma said firmly but he knew that he was trying to convince himself of that fact. What if she had died? What did that mean now? Akane seemed fine but a lot more down than usual and he had blamed it on the wedding disaster. What if her recent black moods had to do with something altogether different?

"She told me she came back—" The rest of Mousse's rather telling statement was cut off when Akane slapped a hand over his mouth. Whatever ended the sentence was comprised of two syllables but that was all Ranma could glean.

"You are so dead," Akane told Mousse quietly, her tone of promise something Ranma was pretty familiar with.

When the duck-cursed boy muffled something against her hand, she finally pulled away from him. He smiled apologetically at her. "I'm sorry… but you would never do it on your own."

"You got that right," Akane asserted with a harrumph. Even though their words were innocent enough, Ranma got the feeling that there was a lot more intimate knowledge at work here than they seemed to be revealing.

Mousse leaned forward and whispered something into her ear. Despite the way rage and a new wave of dark despair were warring inside him, Ranma's trained senses just barely caught what he said. "There's such a thing as too much pride."

Almost instantly, Akane's face melted into a gentler expression, her flipswitch anger fading into fondness. Ranma himself had witnessed her swinging moods in this way but he knew that had more to do with the way his foot liked to live in his mouth than Akane herself. "Thanks, Mousse," she murmured.

With a nod, the Chinese teenager stood and maneuvered his way out of the classroom, leaving through the door rather than via a window and breaking down a wall as Shampoo could be wont to do. The classroom became silent as everyone stared at Akane but Ranma had a different idea, a deep burning desire to know what Mousse was going to say.

Without another thought, he followed the boy's path, zigzagging out of the room before anyone could demand that he do different. It was a bit of surprise to find that Mousse had not gone far beyond the door.

"Ranma," the dark-haired male greeted neutrally with a slight inclination of his head.

"Why did she come back?" He had to know the answer before he completely admitted to everything else that lay on this path. He didn't want to think about any of it – the supposed truth of Akane's death, the intensity of his feelings, not any of it – but he needed the answer.

Mousse laughed that intense 'I know something you don't' laugh that really irritated Ranma. Especially because, most of the time, he really _didn't_ know… well, anything. "It's obvious. She came back for you." Those blue-green eyes turned hateful for a moment. "It's the worst kind of man that will take back affection."

Ranma stared at Mousse as he finally left the school, not even asking himself why the Chinese teenager was now oddly graceful or why he had not mistook anyone for someone else. All that mattered was the new truth – Akane had pulled herself from death for him. It put a new spin on the last few days – the wedding disaster, her destruction of the wedding dress, even skipping out on school.

How was he supposed to fix this?


	5. In Which Consequences Are Avoided

"Tadaima!" Akane caroled as she walked through the front door of the Tendo household. She was in the process of slipping off her shoes when she noticed Kasumi rushing toward her. Oh, she knew that expression – her oneechan usually only looked that way when she was about to send Akane out to the market.

"Akane, I'm glad you're home. I need you to get some things for me." She passed a longer-than-usual list to the younger girl. "You can take your time, though. I don't need any of this until tomorrow."

Suppressing the quiet sigh that immediately rose to her lips, Akane took the list and allowed her foot to slide back into the shoe. "Sure thing, Kasumi."

"Um, Akane?" Kasumi managed to utter softly just as Akane was half-turned toward the door.

Akane looked at her sister's normally serene face and grimaced slightly at how pinched her face looked. She couldn't imagine that this was going to be a fun question. "Yes, Kasumi?"

"About Mousse…"

Laughter almost immediately bubbled forth from her lips, interrupting Kasumi immediately. Akane had truly thought her sister was going to have another one of those serious 'forgive Ranma, it's not his fault' conversations that they had about every other week. "Mousse is a friend and just a friend. He just helped when I was feeling down."

"But Ranma…" Kasumi looked torn, likely uncertain as how to express her feelings without seeming to force Akane into a particular position.

Akane pinned her older sister with a firm gaze. "Ranma has nothing to worry about, okay, Kasumi?" She said it as clearly as she could manage without risking the overjoyed reactions of her father and his friend if they happened to be within earshot. "I'll be back later."

"Where is Ranma?" her sister asked. Akane could tell by her tone that she intended for it to be the last question.

Shrugging her shoulders, Akane opened the door. "He took off after school. I don't know where." That said, she escaped the house again before Kasumi could continue question her.

Despite her urge to avoid the line of questioning, Akane thought about Ranma as she walked to the market. It was inevitable, of course, thinking about the cursed boy. He swarmed her mind lately, often much more than she liked. She had admitted that she loved him a long time ago, long before the three words in his voice had returned her from beyond the veil.

The problem was… well, she was a good Japanese girl and good girls simply didn't make the first move. That is not to say that she hadn't thought about it. Oh, how she'd thought about it! But every time her consideration of the idea had gotten serious, she thought about Kodachi and Shampoo and Ukyo and their many attempts to do the same. When she wasn't seething with jealous anger, she admitted to herself that they seemed kind of… desperate and more than a little pathetic. She definitely didn't want to think of herself as pathetic, never mind what kind of thoughts such actions would cause Ranma to think.

No, even if she wanted to, she simply couldn't become… them.

Shaking her head of the circular thoughts, Akane looked around to find herself in the market district. Thankfully, her preoccupation had carried her past both Ucchan's and the Nekohanten. Glancing down at the list in her hand, she sighed. She would be wandering from stall to stall, collecting groceries for at least an hour. Probably longer.

"Akane!"

Arching an eyebrow slightly, Akane turned around to find a bright blue tulip being presented before her. She focused past the flower to find Mousse smiling at her, his blue-green eyes a little sad. Relieving him of the flower but still wary of it out of experience (it would probably be some time before she forgot the exploding rose of unconsciousness), she frowned at him. "Something the matter?"

He shrugged and pulled himself up to his proper height, which was about a head about Akane's own. "The old ghoul finally noticed," he started, rolling his eyes slightly.

She instantly knew that he was referring to his new contact lenses. "Are you being punished or something?"

Mousse waved one of his hands dismissively. "No, punishment's over. I'm just out of the way for a little bit."

Now that she thought about it, Akane realized that despite her many trips to the market she had never seen Mousse there. It was a good thing, though; with his old glasses, he wouldn't have been the ideal person to buying food. "But you were punished?" she asked in a way that she knew that he realized she was asking what the punishment was.

Mousse paused, shifting uncomfortable from foot to foot before he managed to continue. "She made me tell her about… about everything. About China and the wedding, which kind of led to what you and I were doing yesterday."

Akane stopped them at a stall where the bulk of what she needed was sold. "Why'd she want to know?"

"She heard about the wedding from one of the customers. They were whispering about how you'd been… you know." He obviously didn't want to say it, so Akane didn't try to torture him further.

"Left at the altar? I figured it would get all over Nerima eventually. What about it?"

"Cologne didn't even know there was a wedding." Akane faced Mousse quickly, goggling at him. Nabiki had sent those invites out to everyone – how could Cologne not have known? "I know what you're thinking. Shampoo intercepted the mail that day."

Akane rolled her eyes. "So, why do you have to be 'out of the way'?" she asked, using her fingers to air-quote.

Mousse cleared his throat significantly and when he spoke again, his voice had the same creaky yet feminine quality that Cologne's did. " 'Shampoo has behaved unbefitting of an Amazon. You must be elsewhere while she endures her punishment.'" He stopped and gave Akane a sheepish grin and showed her a sheet of paper. "And then she handed me the inventory list."

Akane craned her neck slightly to get a look at his list, which was nearly twice as long as the one Kasumi gave her. "Geez, you're gonna be here all night. Is she gonna be punishing Shampoo for that long?"

The Chinese teenager shrugged, doing his level best to affect nonchalance. "It's not my place to ask questions about my elder's decisions."

The girl idly wondered what exactly it was Shampoo was getting punished for – her hand in the wedding disaster, her actions in Jusendo (for Akane was sure she had done something worth getting punished for), or maybe just withholding things from Cologne? She shrugged as well, trying to affect the same emotions that Mousse was faking. Her life was full of her own problems – she was not going to fall into the trap of feeling sorry for Shampoo.

"So," Mousse asked after a beat of silence, "are you still mad?" His face fell before she even had a chance to reply, revealing to Akane just how brow-beaten the boy was usually. "I'll bring you lunch every day for a week—No, no! For a month!—to make up for it."

Akane placed a gentle hand on Mousse's arm, grinning up at him. "Calm down. I'm not mad. Maybe a little disappointed, I guess."

"I'm sorry," he said instantly. She didn't have to look at him to know that his head was bowed in shame.

"Not in you, stupid." She punched him in the arm, just hard enough to get her point across. "In Ranma. I thought him knowing would… I don't know, maybe change something. Like our whole dynamic or something but I don't think anything's changed at all."

Mousse frowned down at her. "Are you sure nothing's changed?"

"I don't know." Akane sighed, allowing herself the smallest moment of feeling the full amount of despair that the situation warranted before pushing it all back behind her emotional walls. "I mean, if I didn't know better, I'd think he started brooding after lunch. But that's just not like Ranma."

"Well, things did change while we were in China," Mousse reminded her.

Though he made a point, Akane could help but wonder if anything had changed enough to matter.

* * *

And brooding, Ranma was.

Or rather, he was thinking much more deeply than he was used to. He was in the park nearest the Tendo dojo, hanging upside down from one of the lower branches of a tree. He had spent a good deal of the day thinking about the events of Jusendo and the sacrifice that Akane had nearly made for him in that debacle of a wedding.

"Ranchan?"

Speaking of the wedding… Ranma craned his head to pin Ukyo with a neutral stare. Though she had no part of everything that had happened in China, she had been one of the key instigators of the destruction of the dojo. She had used her explosive okonomiyaki as bombs at what should have been a solemn occasion. It was no matter that they had hit him rather than Akane – what mattered was that this was at least the second instance in which she had brought severe property damage down around his head because of her own selfishness.

Every time he walked through the dojo, he was reminded of it. The memory itself made little to no impact to him. He made no attachments to physical things – Pops had taught him that quite early in life. But Akane… That dojo was everything to her. It held her mother's shrine and had a secret slide-away panel that held the tenets of the Anything-Goes Martial Arts schools. (Not that there were many, but that was beside the point.) It was her sanctuary and her stress relief and her family's pride in one slightly battered package.

"Yeah, Ukyo?" he finally answered.

The okonomiyaki chef flinched visibly and Ranma became aware that his eyes might have been a little more… steely than he'd originally intended. "What did Mousse mean today? About Akane dying?"

Ranma barely kept his face from echoing a similar flinch. Ukyo didn't know that every time he heard someone say it, it was like a horrifying echo in his mind, reminding him of something Akane had been keeping from him, reminding him that he had nearly lost her forever. There was still a part of him that screamed that it was all a lie, it couldn't be true, it was impossible to just come back from the dead. And then he remembered Mousse's hateful stare, something that was usually only reserved for misunderstandings involving Shampoo, and he knew it was true. Even worse, he knew that Akane had confided in the duck-boy and told him what none of the other fiancées knew, that in denying he had said he loved her _out loud _he as good as denied that he felt any love at all.

"I was gone last week to China, remember?" He watched her face darken significantly and he remembered that he hadn't told her much. Something to do with Shampoo, maybe? The beginning of their trip to Jusendo was all a blur in his mind and the only thing worth remembering was how Akane had saved him – twice! – when she wasn't even supposed to be there and how he barely saved her in time. "Anyway, Akane showed up out of nowhere and we all thought she died. But she's okay now and that's the end of it."

Ukyo glared up at him with her big eyes. Because of his time around Akane, a little glare was nothing to deal with but he knew that the chef below him always knew there was more to his stories than what he said. "Tell me all of it," she ground out through clenched teeth.

Ranma narrowed his eyes at her but gave in, deciding to give her the meat of the story. There were certain things about the whole experience that he wanted to forget and certainly would never tell another soul that hadn't been there but there were also other things that he would never forget… "The springs were drying up, that's why we went. Turns out it was for this Saffron guy, some sort of phoenix god or something, for his transformation. Something about turning all the Jusenkyo water hot." He frowned and scratched the top of his head. This was something Akane was definitely better at – explanations after the fact. Releasing the tension in his legs, he flipped easily off of the branch and landed on the ground near Ukyo, having decided to sit at the base of the tree.

"A phoenix?" she exclaimed in shock.

He shrugged noncommittally. "Somehow, I got caught up in Saffron's transformation. I was going to be trapped in an egg with him, be his food or something." He laughed briefly. "Then there Akane was, running at the key that would turn off the hot water." At her confused look, he attempted to clarify. "'Cause the hot-water key was what started it. But, um… The heat was too much for her. It took all the water from her body, shrunk her down to the size of a doll."

"Is that when…?" Ukyo trailed off, her face pulled into a mask of saddened shock.

"No!" Ranma replied, more sharply than he'd intended. "No. She was still alive and the only way to return her to normal was to get the cold water back on. The Jusenkyo guide told us so." He looked away from his friend/fiancée's gaze and picked idly at the grass on the ground. "There was a big fight with Saffron – the egg transformation made it so he could throw these massive fireballs. The whole time, Akane was somehow protecting me."

"How could she?" the okonomiyaki chef asked in true bewilderment. "How do you know?"

"I don't know how she did it!" Closing his eyes, Ranma tried to rein in the anger that suffused him at these memories. "Saffron could tell she was using her body to shield mine from the worst of the heat and damage. He thought it was… funny." He could feel it as his face twisted into an enraged grimace. "She made it so… so that my last attack could strike him perfectly. She nearly killed herself," he finished in a whisper.

Ukyo nudged him slightly with a shoulder. "But she's okay now, right? Everything's back to normal?"

But it was almost as if her words couldn't penetrate the black pit his mind had turned into when having to fully face the memories. "If Mousse was right, I didn't save her like I thought. I was too late."

"You've chosen, haven't you?" Ranma jerked his head back to Ukyo, his eyes wide in confusion. "You chose Akane."

"What do you mean, 'chose'?"

"I thought…" Ranma felt the urge to beat a hasty retreat at the sight of the tears welling in his friend's eyes but he couldn't move even if his life depended on it. "I thought you would hate being married to her. I thought she was _forcing_ you. I guess I was wrong."

"Ucchan?" he asked softly as she stood to her feet, obviously meaning to leave.

"I lost my right to claim my family more than ten years ago, Ranma. I'm used to it." Her shimmering eyes looked down on her, some unknown knowledge both heavy and painful in those tears. "If you love her, you should tell her before… before any more damage is done." Without another word, she ran away.

Maybe it was that he felt almost zero need to follow her or that her words somehow rang true that pinned him to the ground. And that was what it felt like – being held down by some horrible new information, unable to move or breathe. He loved Akane, that was the truest thing he had ever known about himself.

But did she love him? Or had she chosen someone else entirely? Someone tall and romantic and utterly blind?

As if the mere thought of him was enough, Ranma began to remember the scene outside the classroom just mere hours before. _"She came back for you."_ Mousse's heavy glare had pierced into him like a steel javelin, trying to make one thing clear. He had seen that glare before, angry and protective, when he teased or hurt Ryoga as P-Chan. Was that what Akane and Mousse were to each other, nothing more than friends, their feelings for each other nothing more than what one would give a pet?

Well, where did that leave him?

With a frustrated growl, Ranma slammed his head back, creating a sharp and hard contact with the tree. "Ow," he murmured, standing to throw the inanimate object a stony look. "Time to go home, I guess." Feeling more lonely than he liked, Ranma started down the path to the Tendo dojo.

* * *

**A/N: I know everyone's gonna call this a tease again. This is especially a tease! Mwa ha ha! Don't worry, dear readers, the next chapter will have some actual meat to it. Yay! And as always, thank you everyone for the reviews!**


	6. In Which Nightmares Are Had

**A/N: Heh, getting back to this took some doing but writing on something else helped to clear the fog. Well, that and forcing myself to finish the chapter. Just a tad shorter than my usual chapters. Hope you enjoy and I appreciate all reviews!**

* * *

anma was surrounded by dark fog that curled around his ankles and whispered secrets into his ears. None of the whispers were the good kind, murmuring softly of death and loss and reminding him of everything that he was taking for granted. There were words about how it was too late and he'd already had his chance. That Akane was lost to him and he should just be a man and deal with it already.

"Ranma!" He tried to move against the fog when he heard the scream, so very familiar as only Akane's voice could be, but he couldn't budge. When he hadn't been looking, the tendrils of fog had materialized into vine-like tentacles, wrapping around him painfully. He struggled against them but that only caused them to tighten further, biting into his skin and squeezing his throat until his vision grayed in result.

"No," he gasped. "No!"

The dreamscape faded immediately to reveal the guest room in which he and his father slept and it took Ranma precious seconds to realize that it had been a nightmare. Just another stupid nightmare that left him gasping for breath. He wasn't like Akane, didn't put any kind of significance in supernatural things like tarot cards or palm reading but the frequency of his nightmares had to have some kind of meaning.

"That I'm going crazy, maybe," he muttered to himself, idly throwing a steely glare at his snoring father. He was, of course, in panda form as he often was while he slept, something that often irritated Ranma. He was a lot harder to hurt in this form and slept much deeper. Although, some days that tendency was actually a blessing.

Rolling his eyes at his own wandering thoughts, Ranma stood and looked out the window, relieved when he saw the sky was clear. With the quick and silent movements that came so natural to him, he was soon on the roof, padding gently on the tiles until he was on the apex of the roof. He sat down and looked idly at the expanse of yard just outside the dojo.

He had watched Mousse and Akane from this vantage point just a day ago. It was then that he had come to the realization that she was very unhappy. Watching that Chinese duck-boy be the one to make her laugh again, that laugh of total abandon, had been painful to say the least. He knew why as well – he had said it aloud not even a week ago. Even when he didn't mean to, all he did was make Akane mad.

How did Mousse seem to make her laugh so easily?

Shaking his head dismally, he stood again and walked to the edge of the roof just above Akane's room, needing to check on her. Needing to see her, to reassure himself that she was alive. Pulling himself into the familiar upside-down perch, he looked into her darkened room. Akane lay perfectly still on her bed, something that Ranma wasn't pleased about in the least. He knew that she was never unmoving in sleep, always tossing and turning and punching and kicking. This stillness was more than a little unnerving.

Suddenly, she sat up with a gasp of breath and only then did he notice that her blankets had somehow wrapped tightly around her body, reminding him uneasily of the tentacle-vines in his dream. A few rushed, jerky movements freed her from the trap and she rolled off her bed, striding in purposeful movements in his direction. Thinking she had sensed him, Ranma swung himself back up onto the roof just before she opened the window. He waited with shallow breaths for her to scream his name.

The sounds that followed, however, he definitely did not expect. There was a clatter and then a hard thud. "Ow," Akane moaned softly, catching his attention and concern. He leaned forward and saw her lying flat on her back on the ground, her chest heaving in quick, violent movements. Was she hyperventilating?

"Akane!" he yelped. With a twitch of motion, he was in the air and soon landed by her side with a whisper of sound.

"Oh, God." Akane raised her hands to cover her eyes as her breathing evened out. As she pressed her hands into her eyes, Ranma could tell that she was controlling her breathing. "It's okay, Akane," she murmured, as if to herself. "Everything's okay."

"Akane?" he queried softly.

She quickly pulled her hands away, alarmed brown eyes looking into concerned blue. "Ranma! What… what are you doing out here?"

He arched an eyebrow at her. Considering that she'd been seemingly deep asleep a couple minutes ago, he thought her journey out the window was a sleepwalking kind of thing. "So, you know you're outside?"

She scoffed at him and rolled her eyes. "Of course I do."

"_Why_ are you outside?" he inquired further, his voice intent.

"I…" She trailed off and sighed, her gaze trailing away from his eyes. "I needed some air."

After a few moments of heavy silence, Ranma finally stood from his crouched position and held his hand out for her to grab. "Come on, let's get you back inside."

"No!" Ranma's eyes widened at the amount of fear in her voice. "N-not yet, okay?"

He looked down at her, starting to think she actually couldn't move, when she finally rolled over and pushed herself to her feet. As she made her way around the edges of the house to the koi pond, he followed her at a safe distance. So far, he hadn't been able to properly gauge her mood and it was always best to assume she was a false word away from violence. "What's wrong?" he asked finally.

Akane looked down at the pond for a long moment and then finally turned to look at him. Her eyes looked… haunted, Ranma thought, and intent. It was as if she was trying to will him to know something, maybe something he should already know.

Under the weight of her stare, neither steely nor carefree, Ranma felt himself crumble under the pressure. He could see Mousse's glare, hear Ukyo telling him to tell Akane how he really felt, and feel that indescribable pain of losing said fiancée all over again. With a cold fire pulsing in his chest, he met Akane's eyes. "Did you really…?" But he couldn't say the word; saying it made it real and he didn't think he was strong enough to face that again.

"Was I breathing? Was my heart beating?" With each question, he could feel himself flinch with memory. "Maybe, probably I was. It was dark and I felt so heavy." She laughed softly, the sound short but still almost… fond? "Then, I heard you."

Ranma scowled gently, instantly remembering the argument from a few days ago. "I _know_ I didn't say it out loud," he told her in a soft voice.

Akane gave him the same look as she did on the day of the would-be wedding, her brown eyes shimmering with knowing irritation but not anger. Somehow, she wasn't angry. "Does that matter?" She sighed, turning to face the pond again. "Did you mean it?" It almost sounded as if those words cost her something.

After a moment, he sat on the ground, folding his legs under him and staring intently at the ground. How many times since their return from China had he been forced to really look at himself, forced to realize how deep and true his love for Akane really was? Without her, everything looked gray and lifeless and absolutely boring. "Yes," he whispered softly, feeling pained with the words that drifted back to his mind from the nightmare. He was too late, she loved someone else, he'd spent too much time being a 'man' before finding out none of that really mattered without Akane around to give his life light and meaning.

So lost was he in that despair that he barely registered Akane walking over to him. Even as she knelt in front of him, a deep inner part of him feared what she would say now. Before he could think beyond it, though, she prodded him under the chin to look up at her. He saw soft brown eyes and an incredibly gentle smile before she pressed her lips to his.

It was like a burst of lightning, surging throughout his entire body. He knew the pain of love intimately, especially having fought it for so long, but this… this is what those silly love songs his fiancée liked to listen to were all about, a feeling of warmth and completeness that was all-consuming. Though he didn't realize he was doing anything at first, his mind somewhat distracted by the sensation of his heart bursting with emotion, his lips moved against hers, returning the kiss. Too soon, she pulled away from him but Ranma felt a little better when she pressed her forehead lightly against his.

"I love you too, baka."

His ire rising slightly at the familiar insult, he opened his mouth and looked up at her, only to realize she was smiling that same soft smile and that the word had been said in jest. Clearing his throat slightly, he tried to find something else to say. "What about… what about Mousse?"

Akane laughed almost immediately and the sound of it, even though she was obviously laughing at him and his very serious question, flooded him with relief. Maybe all his worry was for nothing, after all. "Mousse is a friend, Ranma. I am allowed to have friends, right?"

Ranma frowned, his lower lip jutting out in a very slight pout. "Well, yeah, of course. But what about Yuka and Sayuri? They're your friends."

"Hmm." Without another word, Akane pulled away from him completely and settled herself on the ground, laying on the ground and staring up at the sky.

He looked over at her in concern, wondering at her noncommittal response. "Akane? What's wrong?"

She didn't look at him, her eyes stubbornly facing upward. "We're not really the best of friends anymore. I guess I've spent so much time involved with everything having to do with you that I never really noticed but they kind of… moved on without me."

Ranma scowled, thinking that was a stupid reason not to be friends with someone. "You're not friends anymore?" He couldn't stop the edge from sneaking into his voice.

"Well…" Finally, she tilted her head to look at him again and whatever emotion was in her eyes was too complex for him to understand. "We just drifted apart, that's all. It happens."

_It does? _Ranma asked himself. That hadn't ever been his experience, though his experiences of suddenly vanishing from a friend's life probably couldn't be considered anything like normal. "And… Mousse?"

Akane smiled, a broad grin that blossomed across her face. "He needed a friend more badly than I did." She chuckled, her eyes growing distant with memory. "I spent nearly three months' worth of allowance at the eye clinic alone."

"The eye clinic?" Ranma echoed uncertainly.

"Ha!" The short-haired girl pointed an imperious digit dangerously close to his nose. "I told him you didn't notice."

The way she said it, it made it sound like… "Did you bet on me not noticing?" he asked incredulously. He still wasn't completely sure what he hadn't noticed but if it came down to it, he could fake it. Although, in retrospect, Akane could always see through most of his lies, as long as they didn't directly involve her.

She scoffed at him. "You don't even know what you're not noticing." Which, of course, completely proved his thought right. Even though he hated it a little that he couldn't bluff her, he still loved that she knew him that well. "He's been wearing contacts. I mean, we're going to pick up his new glasses on Saturday but I think he might stick with the contacts. Better for fighting, you know."

"Contact… lenses? As in, the things you put in your eyes?" He shuddered slightly at the thought of putting a foreign object into his eye. "He can see?" She nodded, her grin broadening. However, just then, another thought occurred to Ranma, something that he thought to be possibly very sad. "No one noticed?"

The smile faded from her face, borrowed sympathy for the Chinese male's plight. "Well, Cologne did but that was still a day after the fact." She sighed, resting her hand on her stomach. "It's nice, though, to have a friend that understands all the crazy."

_I understand the crazy,_ Ranma wanted to say, a spark of jealousy still marring his opinion of Mousse. But he knew, in truth, that he didn't really understand Akane's reactions to the pure chaos that seemed to imbue his life. His life had always been that way – hectic and always changing, something he knew could largely be blamed on his father. But of course, that was yet another reason he loved Akane. For all the insults and her tendency to jump to conclusions, she was always there for him – she was his constant. "You're going back? On Saturday?"

"Mm." Akane nodded and he could tell she was tired but he didn't want this moment to end. "That's the plan."

"Can…" He trailed off, clearing his throat nervously. "Do you think I could come, too?" He felt like a fool for asking but he knew how she hated it when he just invited himself along.

She looked at him again, offering him a half-smile. "I'll talk to Mousse about it, okay? I'm sure he'll be fine with it." He noticed her fist clench slightly. He knew that this meant that her response should be translated as _I'll make sure he's fine with it._

Mollified, Ranma grinned at her. Silence settled around them, only broken by their soft breathing and the crackle of the streetlamps. After a moment, he remembered the thought he had a few nights ago, the thought that maybe Akane could teach him the constellations. At the same time, he could share his made-up ones with her. "Akane?"

"Yeah?"

He took a deep breath, concentrating on the question itself so that it didn't sound so similar to… asking for help. "You know the constellations, right?" She nodded affirmatively and gave a little grunt in response. "Well, I've never learned them. When me and Pops used to be out under the sky, I used to make up names for the shapes I could see but I never told him. Do you think…?" Even though the question was mostly out and his intent especially clear, his voice still faded.

Smirking to herself, Akane shifted closer to him so that they had the same line of sight. Ranma felt heat rush to his face at the contact but was somewhat placated when he noticed a similar blush on Akane's face. "Sure. Show me the first one you can remember and we'll start from there." Despite whatever embarrassment his fiancée may have felt, he could hear her sliding into what he thought of as her 'teacher mode', the voice she used when she tried to tutor him.

He pointed out a shape in the night sky. "Tanuki."

She giggled softly. "Racoon dog? Okay, I see that." She marked out a shape that looked a little like a tiny pot. "Part of that is Ursa Minor. Most people call it the Little Dipper." Then she moved her hand out further and marked out a circle and a long line that curved around the constellation she'd just shown him. "And that is Draco, the dragon. Did you think tanukis had long tails when you were little?"

Ranma chuckled self-consciously. "I thought all dogs did." And they continued like that for much of that for the rest of night with Akane using his constellations to show him what the actual constellations were and how'd they managed to compose the images he'd found in the night sky when he was very young. As it turned out, only one of his constellations matched the real one – an image he called the Master that coincided with Orion, the Archer. That fact didn't make him feel better as Orion was a rather clear and obvious constellation.

While he strived to soak in as much of the information as he could manage, perhaps for a future hope that he could impress Akane with how much of what she'd said he remembered, there was a part of him deep inside that thought this was really nice. It was calm and quiet and they weren't fighting and there was no family or surplus fiancées trying to wreck their moment. The next day might change that, of course. Shampoo hadn't backed down and he surmised it would take something massive to force the Amazons to leave him alone and though Ukyo had seemed to be okay with letting Ranma make his own choice just a scant few hours ago, there really was no knowing when or if she might change her mind.

But for now, Ranma was content.


	7. In Which A Problem Is Mentioned

**A/N: Who missed me? *grin* According to my uploader, it's been roughly three months since I've uploaded anything... and I mean, ****_anything_****. Blame my college classes. I was taking three classes when I moved from Washington to West Virginia, which is kind of a rough move, and then this last set of classes actually required a research paper every week. Kinda made my creativity go poof! Anyway, barring any sudden urge to play video games all the time, maybe the updates won't be quite so far apart. Also, hope I did well on this chapter - some points of it seemed slightly forced for me. Happy reading!**

* * *

He didn't like it.

Mousse stared stubbornly forward, unseeing, as the three of them waited for the next train to Shibuya Station. The three of them! He exhaled roughly, a soundless and petulant huff. He was about to fold his arms when he felt a gentle nudge in his side.

Looking over, he saw that Akane was giving him the big eyes. Her brown orbs seemed to ask what was wrong.

He shook his head silently, trying to convey that he was fine.

She arched an eyebrow and flicked her eyes to the side, obviously referring to Ranma's presence.

He rolled his eyes and shook his head again, though he had a feeling he was a bit less convincing the second go-round.

She scoffed softly, proving his assumption correct. She continued by narrowing her eyes at him playfully but otherwise let the subject drop. However, the soft sound and its source had automatically caught Ranma's attention. The young pigtailed boy looked at his fiancée and asked, "Huh?"

However, that moment perfectly coincided with the soft hiss of the train pulling into Nerima Station. "Look!" Akane said brightly. "All aboard!" Her exuberance, though partially in place to divert the pigtailed martial artist from their silent conversation, was just another thing that Mousse had seen change in the past few days. Whatever it was that had changed between the two of them, it was for the better.

But how did that affect the other fiancées? And Shampoo, in particular?

Scrunching his face in self-disgust, Mousse reminded himself that he wasn't going to torture himself today. If things were ever to move forward for him, he needed to rid himself to the cloying infatuation of his purple-haired goddess and quickly. If even the thought of her made him ready to swoon, then he had to burn the very feeling from his veins.

"You look like Ryoga," Ranma remarked suddenly, his voice level and his eyes curious.

"Ranma," Akane said in a warning tone before shifting her gaze back to Mousse. She had been comfortably seated next to her fiancé but now she stood and moved to sit next to her friend. "Thinking about Shampoo?"

Feeling embarrassed for being caught at it by Ranma of all people, Mousse nodded sheepishly and shrugged. "It's like a disease," he admitted softly. "One without a cure."

Akane wrapped an arm around his shoulders and hugged him briefly. "It'll get better," she promised with a great deal of conviction that he couldn't imagine she actually felt.

He eyed Ranma significantly, thinking of the many times where thinking of him had brought his new friend danger and/or dark emotions. "Not in my experience."

Ranma scowled immediately. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"You know very well what it means," Mousse replied in a perfectly even tone. He arched an eyebrow and had to suppress a soft chuckle when he heard Akane's groan and the distinct sound of her palming her face. He was glad she didn't try to intercede as she had on other occasions. Now that he knew Akane as well as he did now, there were many more things about Ranma and his behavior that bothered him.

Ranma dosed him with a healthy glare. "Can't say that I do," he said dangerously.

"Come on," Akane said finally as a moment of dark silence settle between the two martial artists. "Stop it. This is supposed to be a fun, fight-free day."

They both turned to look at her, their eyes not losing any of their animosity. She matched their gaze easily. "I won't deal with any fights," she informed them in a hard tone. "We leave that kind of behavior back in Nerima."

"Akane," they both whined simultaneously. Oddly enough, they were perfectly in sync but that only made the malicious looks they shot each other that more powerful.

Out of the corner of his eye, Mousse noted the shorter girl rolling her eyes, an action that usually meant she was slightly amused. However, that was probably not the case right at the moment. Given the way that she had purposefully kept herself in high spirits during their small shopping adventure earlier that week, he had to imagine that a bad mood might sour the entire experience. For all of them, if not merely for Akane.

Flashing a final warning glare in the pigtailed teenager's direction, Mousse decided he would be the one to make the first move, slightly inclining his head. "Gomen nasai, Akane. I'll try."

As expected, the pinched irritation that marred the girl's face dissipated instantly, her expression melting into a bright smile. "Thanks, Mousse."

Ranma growled softly at the interaction, the sound low enough that even Mousse could hardly hear it. However, when the train came to a stop and Akane clasped his hand in her own, a goofy smile blossomed across Saotome's face, effectively cutting the negative reaction short. Despite his misgivings, Mousse found it to be exceedingly cute.

* * *

A few hours later found the trio just outside the bustling crowd of Shibuya's central shopping district. There was an open stage set up for some kind of competition, one for which Mousse and Ranma were equally unsuited. Shortly after they erupted from the eye clinic, Akane's excitement for the day working swiftly to infect both of them, the girl in question had taken notice of a flyer attached to the glass window of a nearby record store, declaring a song-and-dance contest at their current location.

"You should compete," Ranma said suddenly, his comment obviously directed at the girl that stood between him and Mousse. "Your singing is…" He flailed his hands slightly, probably at a loss for how to compliment Akane. Mousse found it slightly disconcerting how easy it was for Ranma to put her down but that being nice to her seemed like too much effort. "It's the best," he finished finally.

Akane shifted from foot to foot, completely unaware of Mousse's thoughts or Ranma's difficulty in finding the compliment. The slight blush that tinged her cheeks was the only indication the taller teenager had that she had in fact heard the nice words. "Yeah… but there's dancing and I'm such a klutz."

Ranma scoffed softly. "Who told you that?"

She arched an eyebrow, the twitch of her lips indecisive. As was likely, she probably couldn't decide between scowling at him or almost laughing at his expense. "You did," she reminded him in a level tone.

"Oh," he mumbled softly, his head turned very slightly to the side. "Right." Suddenly, he grinned at her, his hand gripping the back of his head. "Aw, Akane, you know I never mean that stuff." Mousse watched the scene unfold, glad that he could actually see this. This had to be how their arguments started when there wasn't outside interference.

"Really?" Akane arched a critical eyebrow. "Why would you say it if it wasn't true?"

"Well, you know that I—You see, it's like—What's it matter what I say, anyway?" It didn't take a genius to recognize that Ranma was trying his best to refrain from saying anything that would make Akane mad. However, that on its own just wasn't enough.

The girl huffed, her indecisive expression finally settling on a scowl, and moved to walk away from the event. "Whatever. Let's do something else."

Mousse almost sighed, remembering the promise to himself that he would make sure Akane had as much fun as possible. It was the only way he could repay her for the drastic but positive changes she'd already made to his life. "It'll be fun," he mentioned softly.

Despite the burgeoning noise of the crowd that surrounded them, Akane still caught his quiet words, the effect immediately halting her turn. She gave him an uncertain look, shifting the same gaze to the stage. "I don't know…"

"You don't even have to win," Mousse continued. "Just have fun. That's what today's about, right?"

Akane straightened immediately and nodded sharply. "Okay. I'll do it." Then she disappeared into the crowd before she could change her mind and Mousse and Ranma lost sight of her until she began to climb the stairs to the left of the stage, talking to a man operating a sound board. The Chinese teenager fairly gaped at her progress. With his aversion to large gatherings of people, he couldn't understand how she could almost swim through the throng of people.

"How do you do that?" Ranma asked in disbelief.

"Do what?" Mousse asked idly, part of his mind distracted. It now occurred to him that he'd had very little opportunity to listen to Akane sing. At least, not without Shampoo around, at any rate. When the Chinese prodigy was in his immediate vicinity, he was too easily distracted by her… everything.

"Talk to her without being a total ass." He leveled a slightly irritated gaze at Mousse and he immediately knew that Ranma hadn't gotten past the idea that Mousse was trying to take her away, even though it was blatantly obvious that Akane would never belong to anyone but the young Saotome. "I keep thinking that if I say the right things, she won't get mad."

Mousse arched an amused eyebrow. "But you never say the right things." He turned to face the stage, determined to be a good friend and watch Akane's progress through the competition. "Much less, _do_ the right things." It wasn't until that exact moment, the words spilling out of his lips, that the Chinese boy realized that there was something bigger than Saotome's attitude that was bothering him.

However, Ranma was not privy to this particular epiphany. "What are you talking about?"

It was one word, one single piece of knowledge that caused angry embers to ignite in Mousse's gut. "P-Chan," he spat, the name like a vile poison in his mouth.

Ranma snorted softly. "What about him?" A sidelong glance, however, revealed a thin layer of worry on his face and Mousse knew that he knew what he was talking about.

Mousse could feel a myriad of emotions twist his face: fury, disbelief, concern. "You're really okay with Ryoga sleeping with Akane and all that entails?" he asked in a low voice.

"No!" the pigtailed boy roared immediately, his face contorted in anger that the Chinese teenager rarely ever witnessed outside of a fierce battle. However, with the swiftness of one of Akane's mood swings, his face melted into regret. "But… I made a promise."

His fists clenching inside his robes, Mousse decided to hear Ranma out, hoping that it was worth it. "What kind of promise?" he asked finally.

Ranma's blue eyes met Mousse's green ones but he was the first to look away, his distant gaze roaming over the audience. "I promised Ryoga that…" He paused, grimacing slightly. "I promised on my honor that I'd keep his secret. That includes Akane!"

"She's your fiancée, Ranma," Mouse said in a low voice. He tried to smooth out his emotions, his green eyes turning back to the stage to watch Akane's progress. "Maybe you should figure out whose honor is more important: hers or yours."

* * *

The rest of the day passed with little incident. Akane had finished the song and dance competition in second place and Ranma had never seen her so happy to lose. Closing his eyes briefly, he pushed that preconception out of his head… or tried to, at least. However, every time he felt himself feeling even the least bit proud of his fiancée, he could hear his father's voice in his head.

_"There's no such thing as second place, boy. In a real battle, you either win or you're dead. If you're not the best, you're dead."_

Clenching his eyes closed for a moment, he forced Genma's bizarre teachings out of his head only for it to be replaced by the image of Akane's dead body. If he'd been the best, she never would have died, never would have been in the position to die for him. In the end, it wouldn't have mattered that he'd won and Saffron had lost, even at the cost of the little piece of himself that had to be sacrificed in order to deal a killing blow.

The truth of the matter was that it wouldn't mean a thing without Akane. If she had been truly dead or stayed dead or whatever in the name of Kami had happened to her, it wouldn't have meant anything at all.

Ranma had left Akane inside, gushing about the contest to her father and eldest sister, and Mousse was long gone to the Nekohanten. Now, he sat on the roof, the only place in the world where everything made sense. It was where the fiancée mess was just some paltry thing, where Akane dying and the wedding fiasco were actually okay. The only thing he could never seem to sort out without any level of ambivalence was his own feelings.

Until earlier this week.

He had always had strong feelings for Akane – he had just never been really clear on exactly what those feelings were. There was hate but that was ultimately directed at the forced engagement, not the girl herself. Then there were the extreme levels of irritation, from her violent intensity to her jealousy. He didn't know just when in the last two years of living under the same roof as her – the very roof he now sat on – that the very things that used to make him so irritated now only endeared her to him.

And now, this.

The Ryoga predicament was one of the few things that could turn her formidable fury back on him after the strides they'd made in the last few days. He could admit now that he loved her, that he was utterly useless without her. The time he seemed to have lost between almost being absorbed by Saffron and being in the Jusenkyo guide's apartment proved just that. Without Akane, everything seemed flat and two-dimensional.

With a deep sigh, Ranma realized that Mousse was right. It was bad enough that he had let the Lost Boy be alone with Akane at her most vulnerable for two years now. He had always known that his unending love for her and his own unchanging sense of honor made him keep his perverted little hooves to himself. If Mousse was given the opportunity to tell her or – Kami forbid – she found out on her own somehow, he would be beyond screwed.

Closing his eyes, Ranma stood and pressed a hand against the center of his forehead. This was not going to be a bright shining moment in his life, not to indicate that he'd had many to speak of. However, looking on the bright side, Ryoga had been gone since the failed wedding and if his schedule of losing himself was any indicator, they wouldn't see him again for weeks.

It was with this thought running through his mind and a relieved smile blossoming across his face when he heard the one thing – the one voice – that could bring it all crashing down again. "Can you direct me to the Tendo Dojo?" Looking down, he could see the current bane of his newly formed relationship talking to their neighbor – that little old lady with her cursed ladle – just a short distance away.

His lips tight against his teeth, Ranma sucked in a sharp breath, his resolve almost breaking when the eternally lost boy turned in the opposite direction from which the lady pointed. He watched the old woman heave a large, almost endeared sigh, well aware that this was just a long line of similar interactions with Ryoga, as he nudged free a loose roof shingle and flipped it into his hand with the toe of his foot. With a fluid movement borne of years of intense training, he let the hard object fly in a trajectory that would meet the other boy near the nape of his neck. It was an action that would kill a normal person but Ranma hoped it was enough just to put Ryoga down.

And it was. As Ryoga began his unconscious descent, Ranma was already leaping from rooftop to rooftop to his position before something even more unexpected could happen.

He was turning him over, effectively hiding the shingle that now lay on the ground like the judging inanimate object that it was, forcing him to look at his guilt again and again, when he heard the old lady shuffle up next to him. "Mister Saotome?" she asked in that creaky voice of hers. "This young man's your friend, right?"

_I don't know if he would use the word 'friend',_ Ranma commented silently to himself. Instead, he smiled, trying to emulate the helpful and innocent expression Akane used so often. "Yeah. I saw him fall. I thought I'd take him to the dojo."

The old woman smiled, revealing more gum than teeth, but Ranma felt relieved all the same. "Very good. Run along, now."

Nodding, the martial artist hefted Ryoga onto his shoulder, picking up the incriminating shingle surreptitiously in the process. With gentle movements meant to keep from jostling him, he walked back to the dojo at the slowest, most sedate pace he had ever used outside of the school hallways. Still, he was standing between the house and the koi pond inside of a minute. Again, his hands far more gentle with the lost boy than he wanted to be, Ranma set Ryoga on the ground.

"Akane!" he called with an urgent voice. "I need some help out here!"


	8. In Which Boundaries Are Tested

**A/N: Heh, it's been some time since I updated this. But good news, I'm getting closer to the end. Yay! Hope everyone likes this chapter. Please R&R!**

* * *

Akane's ears twitched slightly at the sound of Ranma's call. With a confused frown marring her face, she handed the flimsy second-place medal to Kasumi and walked out toward the koi pond. She idly wondered what in the world Ranma could need of her right that second but could come up with nothing.

Upon reaching the door, she realized that her fiancé was holding an unconscious Ryoga. Eyes widening slightly, she padded quickly out to the pond, wondering what in the world had happened now. From experience, she knew that it took quite a lot to put the permanently lost boy down. "What happened?" She almost cringed at the note of accusation that colored her tone.

At first, Ranma's face darkened slightly, reacting instantly to her tone. She leaned back very slightly, waiting to be assaulted by the wave of anger that she still expected to spill from him at any moment. However, after a moment, his face cleared of the emotion and he raised a hand to the back of his head, embarrassment easily replacing the fury that had formerly swept his features. "Well, I sorta knocked him out. I, um… Well, I needed to show you something."

Akane arched an eyebrow immediately. "What would you have to show me that involves Ryoga being unconscious?"

Ranma sighed roughly and rolled his eyes. "Just watch closely, okay? Don't look away."

As he began to drag Ryoga toward the pond, the same pond that tended to change the forms of both Genma and Ranma almost daily, Akane's confusion only increased and it was somewhat true that confusion tended to agitate her somewhat. "Ranma, what are you doing?"

"Just watch," the pigtailed boy ground out through clenched teeth. It was a sound that Akane thought to be anger and she did as he asked, keeping an eye on both of the martial artists.

Ranma stepped in first, his form instantly changing into that of a female. It was something Akane had seen happen thousands of times and knew that this was not something that would be a revelation. However, jerking his arms very slightly, Akane saw that Ryoga was to follow suit. She sat very still, even though everything in her was screaming to turn away. The urge to not witness whatever it was that her fiancé was showing her was so strong that she had to wrap her fists in the hem of her dress in order to remain there.

In the blink of an eye, Ryoga changed. The moment his body hit the water, there was an odd shimmer in the air – the very same shimmer that Akane had noticed seemed to accompany all of those that shifted into their cursed forms when hit with cold water – and suddenly, P-Chan was in Ranma's hands. It was only then, in a numb state of shock, that Akane realized that Ranma had had his hands completely entangled in Ryoga's bandana, the same bandana that was tied around P-Chan's neck.

_Why didn't I ever notice that before?_ she thought to herself.

Ryoga was P-Chan. P-Chan was Ryoga. Though the new connection spun crazily inside her head, feeding her shock endlessly, she could feel it slide into place as a truth. First, there was the fact that she had never seen Ryoga and P-Chan together at the same time, though that had never seemed suspect until now. Then, there was the fact that Ryoga almost always went with Ranma when he thought he was close to finding a cure, though she had always just assumed he was being a good friend.

Why did she always have to assume the best in people? All that ever happened was that she was disappointed in the end.

She took one step back and then another. She keep walking backward until she hit the walkway that separated the house from the grounds. Allowing the momentum to carry her down, she impacted the wooden structure with a plop, choosing that moment to finally look at Ranma.

His blue eyes were sad, she noted passively. He seemed truly sorry about telling her this, even as he gripped the now struggling P-Chan in his hand. Likely when he was doused with the cold water or through the force of the change, Ryoga has returned to consciousness. However, Akane couldn't look away from her fiancé as other insults flew through her mind, insults that had never been directed at her. Except, in a way, she thought now that they had.

"_Pork butt! Bacon breath!" He's even called him P-Chan._

"How long?" she finally asked.

Ranma blinked in confusion, the sorrow bleeding away as a result. "Huh?"

"How long have you known?"

"About…" He trailed off, his hand again gripping the back of his head. Looking off to the side, he muttered, "Since about the first time he showed up."

Akane sat very still, calculating the time in her head. Even though her pet pig – _Ryoga!,_ she reminded herself – would disappear for weeks, even months at a time, that meant that it was something he had kept from her for almost two years. If he could keep something like that from her, who knew what else he was lying to her about?

Standing suddenly, even though the movement itself made her feel very slightly dizzy, she murmured, "I—I gotta go." Her body held in a calm and collected line, even while her mind screamed and railed and asserted that she destroy something, she walked away.

* * *

It was almost sunset when Mousse stumbled upon Akane, almost three hours after Ranma's revelation of her pet piglet's true nature. The Chinese teenager had been walking around Nerima, taking a new look at landmarks he knew by heart but had never really seen until now. The novelty of being able to see everything all the time had yet to wear off and he guessed it would still amaze him for some time. After all, even with the aid of his glasses, his vision had been spotty at best for the past fourteen years.

In the last week, between the various changes that he had underwent, he hadn't had a chance to really see a sunset. It was, admittedly, a small thing; Shampoo herself would likely mock him for such a thought. But today, not much could bother him. After finally confronting Ranma about one of the many things that bothered him about the martial artist, it was like a weight lifted off his shoulders. If he could even bring himself to tell Akane about Ryoga, maybe he deserved her, after all.

For Mousse, it was a little like empowerment. He knew very well that Ranma could destroy him, probably quite easily. But the other boy apparently realized his superiority in this topic – after all, it seemed like Mousse had learned more about Akane in the past week than Ranma had bothered to in the past two years. Additionally, this incremental separation from the old ghoul and Shampoo both seemed to be making him stronger.

Never mind that his love for the purple-haired girl showed no signs of dissipating.

Looking up at the lowering sun, he noticed a familiar silhouette on a nearby rooftop. Glancing around to reaffirm his surroundings, he realized that she was sitting on the rooftop of Tofu's clinic. Though dark was quickly coming, he knew that the clinic was actually open at all hours. The question that remained was: What was Akane doing on the doctor's roof?

With a single nimble leap, Mousse landed gracefully at her level with one foot gripping a shingle and the other drawn up to brace against his thigh. Another soundless movement and his other foot lowered to grip the shingle directly in front of him. Confident in his balance, he moved forward and settled down next to Akane, careful to place a good amount of space between them and stared out at the sky.

While he waited for the Japanese girl to say something, he noted the sky carefully. He wanted to remember this forever: the beautiful colors of a sunset in Japan and the warm feeling of having a real friend. He had no illusions about his future, though. He knew that sometime in the future, be it near or far, he would have to return to the village. The hidden Joketsuzoku village was far from the Chinese cities and his vision would deteriorate to a point that his corrective lenses would no longer work. Additionally, because Shampoo was basically the uncontested princess of their village, it would be likely that he would have to settle for someone else and into the role of an Amazon househusband. His future was quite bleak but he had hope and he had some measure of happiness in the present.

Akane inhaled deeply after a long moment and shifted her head to look at Mousse. "Ryoga is P-Chan," she told him. When she spoke again, her voice held a sharpened tone and the Chinese boy could almost feel himself cut by it. "But I think you knew that already."

Mousse bowed his head for a moment, accepting the pain and welcoming it. He did deserve it, after all. He turned to look her in the eye, swallowing past the lump that formed in his throat at the sight of her face. Her honey-brown eyes were dry but bloodshot and her cheeks showed the pink and raw proof that she had been crying. "I did," he conceded softly.

It was true that all of those that were cursed had an intimate knowledge of each other's curses, often through trial and error. Shampoo had told him that she had once tried to serve Ryoga to Ranma, though she had not cooked him. He often felt the enjoyment she got out of that story reflected more of who she really was than his distorted tint of her would often allow.

"Is this…" Akane paused, inhaling deeply again. "Is this one of those things you were trying to apologize for?"

Mousse lifted one shoulder in a half-shrug, not entirely sure what all he had been attempting to apologize for any more. "Maybe." He bowed his head again. "I thought Ranma should be the one to tell you."

Akane clenched her fists for a moment and turned to face the sunset again. "Because he's known the longest," she added.

"Because he's going to marry you," Mousse corrected idly. "Because he's supposed to love you." He laughed softly, mirthlessly. "I don't think he even really gets what that's supposed to mean."

"Do you?" Akane asked sharply. He gaped at her when their gazes connected again. "I know you think you do. You've loved Shampoo for so long." Sighing, she stood to her feet, brushing imaginary dust from her dress. "And I know you think you have to go back, you know, to China someday. Maybe it's hammered into you or something. I don't know."

Mousse frowned up at his friend. "What are you trying to say?"

Akane looked off into the distance, clearly trying to form what exactly it was she was trying to say. "Ranma may be an irredeemable baka but he's _my_ irredeemable baka and I know that, no matter what, he loves me. If he didn't, he never would have told me about Ryoga, even if a certain someone gave him a push." Mousse blushed and ducked his head, having been relatively sure that she hadn't figured it out. "What I mean is, I don't think Shampoo can love someone like that. For Shampoo and Ukyo both, chasing Ranma is about honor and, I'm sorry to say, Shampoo is willing to kill to have him. You might need to face the fact that she might not ever love you."

* * *

Dark had fallen over Nerima some time ago.

Mousse hadn't moved in all that time, thinking deeper thoughts than he really wanted to face. Despite how his inner self, the Mousse that ached to grab onto Shampoo and never let go, wanted to hate Akane for her words and for having someone to love her back no matter how much of an idiot he was about it, he knew she was right. It was sad but true that his beloved Shampoo may never love him in the way he yearned for.

The way he loved and connected to other people, it was unheard of for an Amazon. He had never lived for the battle in the way that Shampoo did and when it wasn't Shampoo's honor at stake, he was unlikely to continue fighting a losing battle. He was a man bred in an Amazon village – it was not his place to risk his life in a battle.

He thought on the past, the years of his life that he had trailed after Shampoo. Before now, he had never thought of her as cruel but merely impassioned and decisive. But like the way Akane had managed to show him the entirety of the world with crystal clarity, he could now see that she had been trying to remove that tinted vision with which he looked at Shampoo. The young Chinese girl was cruel and vindictive and manipulative. In his mind, he could see her laughing, the sound distorted into a dark mockery of the tinkling sound that his ears normally heard.

Oh, he knew that she felt some sort of… affection for him. Something like fondness, possibly much like the feelings Akane had felt for her pet piglet prior to the day's earlier revelation. To Shampoo, he was someone – no, some _thing_ – that would always be around and would always take her abuse. He almost never moved against her, often supporting her when he knew deep down that she was wrong.

Closing his eyes tightly, he pressed his hands against his forehead. Underneath Akane's almost kind warning about Shampoo was something else. She had hinted that he didn't have to go back. He knew that she felt that he didn't fit into that world and it was quite true that he was one of the few men that pursuing battle training. Taking a deep breath and opening his eyes, he stared at the moon that was cresting over the horizon.

If Akane could break out of the destructive cycle she had maintained with Ranma for so many years, then so could he.

Without another thought or time to question the choice that was forming under the bubbling ire in his mind, Mousse stood and leapt from the roof, quickly bounding from rooftop to rooftop until he was atop Ucchan's Okonomiyaki. Ukyo's specialty restaurant was on the same street as the one belonging to the Chinese martial artists, only on the opposite edge and slightly up some distance. Gracefully landing on the sidewalk, he sedately crossed the street and looked into the open window of the Nekohanten.

As per the usual, Shampoo was the very first thing to catch his eye. It wasn't her purple hair or her abundance of curves, for there were many, many other women in the Amazon village with exotic hair and many of them bloomed quite early. He had never really been able to identify what it was about her that made him need to be around her. For the longest time, he thought it fate or destiny that he yearned for her like a wound that wouldn't close, longed for her presence in a way that made no rational sense.

While it was clear that love made no sense, in this instance or in any other that he had yet to witness, it was equally painful to attempt to be objective from a distance. She sauntered her way through the restaurant, easily balancing the bowls of ramen and managing to exude sex appeal while doing it. She would deposit the food at the table, often sashaying the edges of her curves against the customer (as much of the in-house customer base was male) to ensure a hefty tip. It wasn't until she turned away that the male Amazon could see her true feelings, the slightest hint of a scowl that marred her face. It was obvious that she didn't enjoy working the restaurant but she would never speak against her family matriarch, not even if doing so would save her life.

"What are you gawking at, boy?"

It no longer surprised him that Cologne could sneak up on him, though he was getting better and better at picking up her presence before she announced herself. It was a work in progress. "Nothing," he answered in response to her question, feeling the lonely echo in the empty corridors of his heart. Slowly but surely, he thought he would be able to be loose of Shampoo's unintentional grip on his soul.

"If you have time to stare at my granddaughter, your time would be better spent working," the old woman told him in her abominably creaky voice.

Mousse blinked for a moment, reigning in his response to acquiesce to her immediately. It was in this moment, brief and horrifyingly instantaneous, that he remembered a conversation he'd had the night they'd been filling the restaurant's eternal inventory list.

_{"I don't get it," Akane said, shaking her head slightly._

"_Don't get what?" Mousse was genuinely confused._

"_The whole Amazon feminine superiority thing. Rrr!" Akane shook her fist playfully at him but he could tell by her tone that she was serious._

"_That's how it's always been. It's not my place to question it."_

_Akane frowned deeply. "But you should, right?" She sighed at the confusion that swept over his face. "As far as I can tell, the whole Amazon village doesn't seem like it works, not in the long run. Sure, they're after Ranma because he's strong but what they really want is the new blood."_

"_What do you mean?"_

"_The village has got to be pretty insular. It's in the middle of nowhere and purposely secluded from the rest of China, right?" At Mousse's nod, she continued. "Without new people to breed with, the picking can get pretty slim. I can only assume that the men are shared, which sounds barbaric and several levels of gross." Mousse didn't respond but knew that he didn't need to. "Without a lot of deviation in breeding, there becomes a certain point at which the children will be considered inbred. Serious genetic disorders aside, generations of inbreeding will eventually cause sterility."_

"_Huh." Mousse shook his head. "That means that the Amazons would eventually die out. I never thought of it that way."_

_Akane shrugged. "Those are some serious biological concerns." She shrugged. "That aside, I don't think I could take that way of life, if I were you. I'd rather be alone than trapped."}_

"No."

Cologne frowned. "What did you say to me?"

"I said, no. I'm not going in there just because you say," Mousse told the older woman through clenched teeth. There was a part of him, a part that shrank more and more every day, that railed against him for defying his elder in this way.

He felt the change in the air before he saw her move. It was a familiar movement – Cologne was going to strike him with her staff, an upward strike to the bottom curve of his jaw. He had endured much worse on a daily basis – horrifyingly regular beatings from Cologne and Shampoo alike.

This was the first time he had ever thought to defend against it.

There was a sharp thwack as the staff hit his hand and he automatically let his fingers curl around it, flinging it some distance behind him immediately. However, the problem with that was that he was not prepared for what happened next.

Cologne's small palm hit him square in the chest, knocking him back several feet. He coughed immediately and felt the familiar slide of blood coat his throat and mouth. In retrospect, that move had probably infuriated Cologne a great deal. How much time had passed since someone had stripped her of her staff unexpectedly, especially someone of her own village? But was it enough? Was that single act of defiance enough?

"Go inside now and I will forgive this act of insolence."

Mousse smirked, thinking of Akane again. "I would rather die."

Cologne narrowed her eyes. "I will not kill you, Mu Tsu. You are not worth the trouble." She must have noticed the brilliant fire in his green eyes because she continued. "But if you wish it so, you are dead to me. You are dead to the village and you are dead to your mother and her mothers before her."

The teenager nodded and pushed himself to his feet. "So be it," he murmured. Finally, he turned away, feeling freer and lonelier than he ever had before. It took him a long moment to remember Akane – remember Ranma, even – and the fact that he was not alone. He had friends now. With a relieved sigh, his feet turned in the direction of the Tendo dojo.

It was getting hard to breathe.


End file.
